


Tales from Asgard

by A_Pluvial_Miss



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Blood, Bruises, Death, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, F/M, Feels, Loki Feels, Love, Masturbation, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Possessive Loki, Romance, Smut, Virginity, Voyeurism, implied decapitations, sexual harassment in the workplace (Fuck your boss! Or…fuck your boss. Up to you :-)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-04-28
Packaged: 2018-01-13 13:31:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 86,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1228225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Pluvial_Miss/pseuds/A_Pluvial_Miss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A servant. A master. You know the story. Welcome to Asgard. Come, sit by the fire… if you dare</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tales from Asgard

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little erotic short story. Set within the Thor(film) timeline. 
> 
> Timeline to Thor(film): The events in this chapter take place many days before Thor’s coronation scene (the beginning of the movie).

**TALES FROM ASGARD - CHAPTER ONE**

ASGARD stretched in full repose under dazzling towers. Solar light gently peeked over the horizon to check on the still-sleeping kingdom. Sara was very good at staying quiet. She noiselessly made her way up the path and had to squint to see in the dark until she was in view of the bright steaming kitchen that bustled in the heart of the servant quarters. She hurried across a small garden at the foot of her new master’s tower; it was a garden that shielded the servants, along with  _all_  secrets, from the view of the gods and their adoring public. The pathway led from his tower, through the garden, past the servant’s cottages, and onward and beyond to other towers and other kitchens.

“He’ll be in a right mood this morning,” Maddy, the head-cook, said as she chopped a limp chicken neck, and tossed the mass over her shoulder to a small heap of severed heads. Sara kept her eyes away from the rotting heads as she placed an apron over her plain dress. She loosened the ties that snaked around her waist, so she could breathe a little better as she bent over to prepare the water pump. She focused on what she knew best – cleaning…and staying  _silent._ It was a good skill to have. The kitchen was where servants could speak freely but so far she never added to their gossip. Being rather new, she had no idea what they talked about most of the time besides.

Maddy pinched salt over two dead chickens on a wood palette. “With all that business with the king last night,” she continued, shaking her head. “He’ll be sulkin’ about all day. If these birds are cold, it’ll be our old weary heads.”

“Praise Odin,” sighed the palace head-cook, Jar-quel, making a symbol with her hand. She was a bit older than Maddy, but was hardest on Sara who’d only just arrived seven suns ago.

“It’s a good thing you don’t serve in the  _king’s_  kitchens,” she said, haughty. “…all those feasts. Your hands are not speedy enough, Maddy.”

“For this bag of bones here,” she thumped her chest “I’m lucky  _our_  master Loki eats naught but a bite of bread each day – oh, steady girl, careful!” Sara had poured a bucket of hot water onto the floor and a bit splashed on Jarquel’s ankles.

Sara smiled, apologized, and Jarquel huffed a pitying look at Maddy for having to deal with this clusmy new maid. Maddy only shook her head. She had seen worse.

 Sara went outside to bring in a mop when she spotted a woman. Hurrying in the dark and crying into her hand, she wore nothing but a nightgown and her skin glowed violet in the soft, black of the garden. 

“Careful, girl…” Maddy laughed as Sara stumbled, distracted, through the doorway, knocking the bucket again, with the mop. “We’ll send you right back to the villages if you splash and spill about like that.”

When Sara looked back out to the spot, the woman was gone.

“I thought I just saw a lady out there,” she said, sinking the mop and pulling it across the tiles. “Crying. In our garden. Is she one of the servants?”

Jarcquel and Maddy exchanged glances.

“Be a dear, Sara, and go fetch me more salt,” Maddy said.

In silence, they prepped the morning meals and after Jarquel left, Maddy opened the grate to the ovens and placed the salted chickens into the fire.

“It’s nothing you saw in the garden,” Maddy said, answering a question that Sara had already forgot about. She was good at forgetting things. “But if you  _‘ad_  seen something, I’ll tell you what you seen: one of  _many_  girls.”

“Oh, of course,” Sara said, polishing a giant knife that would be laid on her master’s table that evening. “Much the same from where I’m from.”

“Here the masters help themselves,” she said, wiping a gray hair under her bonnet. “Not to an ol’ bird like me, of course, but Lord Thor’s got an appetite on him.” Her jowls wobbled as she shook her head. “As for  _our_  own master….”

Sara paused and looked at her “Well?”

“Lord Loki, he don’t like to… _take,_ you see.He’s finicky as a child and proud and he forgets them very quickly.”

“Oh, I see,” Sara returned to polishing the long line of silverware. “Well if he doesn’t take, how does he…I’ve heard….”

“How does he what?” Maddy asked, “Don’t be delicate with me, girl. How does he bed them?”

“Well…so  _many_  at least, as you’ve said…” Sara stumbled. “If he doesn’t  _take_  them… It’s just, I’ve heard our master’s very…” She lowered her voice to a whisper and Maddy leaned in. “Well…weak and…ugly.”

At this Maddy cackled aloud and her whole body shook.

“Is he, indeed! You’ve been talking to Lord Thor’s servants, I see.”

“Yes, well, they talked to  _me_ more like _,_ ” Sara blushed and placed a polished knife onto the cloth. It shined.

“Oh, they  _would_ , would they…” Maddy closed the oven and looked to the open door – the ear for eavesdropping servants. “Truth is,” she said in a low whisper “Thor’s servants rarely seen our master, nor are they like to, with how those brothers quarrel about.”

“Have  _you_ spoke to our master?”

“Once or twice,” she said, whimsical. “An’ I’ve been here all me life. But our king is a good one and Lord Loki, well he don’t prefer our kind too much, if you know what I mean, so worry you not, miss Sara.”

Maddy winked at her and she was right: the king was good (her attic room, and all the servant’s quarters were warm, with good sheets), and for days, she never did set eyes on the master whose silverware she polished, whose kitchens and servant quarters she kept spotless and tidy.

Often, in the dead of morning, she’d glimpse a girl hurrying from one of the towers, face averted, flushed and sweaty.

This evening, while resting in the garden outside the kitchen, Sara felt a dark energy grip her and  _freeze_ her still. She looked up to a high window of the tower and glimpsed the silhouette of a man, looking out of it. He  _seemed_  to reach nine feet tall, as tall as rumor held Lord Thor stood. But when he turned to leave, she caught a glint of green on his cape.

For many nights, she stayed out of the garden.

In her short time there, she earned a reputation for being a silent, hard-working girl – odd for her youth and age. This reputation gave her the honor of working, on some days, in Lord Thor’s splendid kitchens – massive kitchens for a massive appetite, with gilded ovens and floor tiles as blue as the sea. It was a funny fame to have since back home, she was merry, laughed quite a lot, and had many pleasures. But she was just a child then. That life ended for her…a life she’d put out of her mind and locked away with the faces of her family and friends, long gone now. She was good at forgetting.

After a week of preparing for the feast of the Queen’s festival, and on sunset of the festival day, King Odin gave all the servants use of a small courtyard behind his palace to carry out their own celebrations – however mortal they were. They danced and threw games in his honor and made their own feast to eat. They wove their hair and wrapped their flutes and drums in bluebell wreathes, dyed in the colors of Asgard – gifts from the kind Odin.

Sara danced and, for the first time since leaving home, felt a hint of happiness return. So she groaned when the musicians stopped playing and all the servants fell to their knees as King Odin passed by, followed by his two sons, Lord Thor and Lord Lokiwho slowed behind him to take in their festivities. They were dressed in full regalia and headgears as if they were off to battle or returning from one.

Once the King was out of view, Lord Thor raised his hand for the musicians to play on and he cheered for them, and the servants cheered back. He was a massive man and his laugh even bigger. He tossed rich coins from the bags of his horse and the servants ran forward, scrambling and scooping them into their aprons and pockets. Lord Loki sat atop a giant black steed, glowered at the scene around Thor, then clicked his ankle and trotted the horse past the adoring crowd, past Thor and toward the gate where Sara stood drinking from a cup. As his horse trotted past, Loki looked down at her. Shecaught his glance and his green eyes glared for a second before flicking away.

The next morning, Maddy rushed into the kitchens, and explained with a worried face that Sara was forbidden to enter Thor’s kitchens and all his grounds. She was to remain tending only to the servant cottages and their Lord Loki’s kitchens and grounds from then on out.

“Have I done something wrong?” Sara asked, stuffing her hair back into a knot. It was strange since she was known for her closed mouth and closed ears and quick work. Her hopes sank at the thought of not visiting the bustling, friendly kitchens of Lord Thor’s, but this was her lot. Maddy shook her gray head and hurried her into the kitchen and thrust a broom in her hand and closed the door to the world (and ears) outside.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, my dear,” patting her on the arm. “But ’tis strange.”

As she was about to undress for bed that night, a knock came from the floor. She knelt and released the door-ladder and found herself looking down on Maddy’s worried face, bathed in blue light from the starlamp she held in her hand.

“Sorry, dear, were you off to bed?”

“Just about,” Sara said, feeling a dark chill in the air that didn’t come from the cold. “What is it?”

Maddy bit her lip and then said, “Our master Loki has called you to his chamber.”

Sara paused for a moment. No one cleaned at night, especially during festival. “What? Now?”

“Yes, my dear.” Maddy’s frowned as Sara hurried down the ladder, tying up the coiled strings around her waist (the “corset,” for working servants; and she cursed how it bound in her ribs). She snatched her cape off the hook.

“What for?” She asked while she fussed with the knot on the cape, distracted by the mad pounding of her heart in her chest.

Maddy just looked at her. The wrinkles of her face framed worried eyes. “Oh, be…careful, girl,” she said.

Sara was quiet for a long time and looked down at her own skin – soft and untouched by any man, save one boy in a farm who kissed her hand. She realized thenwhy she was being called.

 “Oh, I see,” Sara said.

“You must be careful, he doesn’t like to  _take_ , you see…” Maddy repeated, in a pleading whisper. “Unlike his brother, who likes to pounce or court. Our master does not like our kind too well, but…he doesn’t _take_ , he traps and toys with his kills.”

“I understand you perfectly,” Sara said.

“But beware…he sets  _snares_. He gets more secrets from ears and mouths all across the realm. He has other means for prying secrets, but it’s  _us_  he gets them from with most ease. You’re not a loose-lipper, I know but –”

She stopped and looked around the empty foyer that led into the kitchens. Sara looked around, too. 

“He will use those secrets to his advantage and whose heads get cut, I say?”

“Our own,” Sara replied, in a whisper.

“Avoid his eyes,” she hurried on as Sara headed toward the door out to the garden.  “They’ll damage more than justyour… _maidenhead._ ” 

“You tell me this  _now_. I thought you said we served kind masters.”

“I said our  _king_  is kind, yes.”

“Well, Praise Odin, protect my head.”

With the nightime behind her, Sara stood at the entrance to Loki’s tower, unsure where to go next, when a man who called himself “the liason” appeared from what seemed like absolutely nowhere. Sara jumped at his sudden presence. She could tell from his bearing that he was mortal like her, but like most Asgardians he didn’t look at her when he spoke.

His face impassive, he motioned her to follow him. Up endless flights of stairs, she went. The dark heights of his tower dizzied her, she could make neither up or down of this place. The liason, reading her vertigo, mentioned off-hand that the effect is common for mortals and she would soon grow used to it.

They finally stopped in a long hallway outside two giant doors sealed with knobs wrought in iron with the medallions of Asgard. The Liason turned to her, his face still bored.

 “You are to clean your master’s chambers while he is away. He sleeps in the day and you will be out of his sight at night. You are not to touch anything but the curtains, the floor, and the shelves. If you touch the Lord’s books or his bed, or any of his belongings, it’s treason. If you speak of anything within his chambers, it’s treason.”

“Yes,” Sara said.  _Everything was treasonous in this realm_ , she thought. There, at least, mortals and Asgardians were equals – both punished for even the slightest of slights.

The Liason, muttered “Praise Odin,” and disappeared.

The doors unlocked magically. She stepped inside and they rumbled shut behind her. She stood alone in a long, empty hall with floors that were ice smooth and black as sleet shining under her feet. At the end of the hall, there was only a giant gilded throne sitting in front of a bright fire that burned, it seemed, in mid-air. She took short steps and looked up at the high ceilings, so high she couldn’t see the tops. Along one wall, stretched a long bed, in emerald sheets and cushions and she glanced away from it quickly.

As she entered deeper into the long hall, everything contracted in size so by the time she reached the end, in a dizzy spell, it was no longer a long hall but just a large room. The bed, which she wouldn’t look at, was now just a wide low sofa of green. The long spectral fire dangling mid-air, was just an orange blaze in a long hearth that stretched along the wall. The gilded throne was now just an enormous chair, edged in gold. And it sat empty.

Unsteadily and dazzled, she removed her cape, careful not to rest it on any of the furniture, and then approached the curtains first, which hung from one of the two high windows that framed the hearth. She removed a rod of steeled feathers from her apron and brushed it across the curtain. She ran her fingers over the fabric – it was made of small particles of stars.

 While she cleaned, she didn’t dare hum to herself in the empty room. Maids who hummed came across frivolous and lazy and it was said to anger the Gods. She also didn’t hum because the room didn’t  _feel_ empty. She stayed away from the long low bed, kept her eyes blind to it and focused on wiping the stardust that collected on a slick black table that held only a starlamp and a stack of books on magic – massive, aged and humming with sorcery.

 At one point, she felt eyes on her.

She turned around and saw Loki, slumped back in the chair, in full regalia, ram’s horns glinting in the fire. He was studying her with dark eyes, his long fingers across his mouth. Sara gasped and blinked. And he stared. She stared back, hypnotized until she found the resolve to shift her eyes away. The vision shimmered and disappeared. The fire shuddered, like under a pulse of air hitting it.

This happened, exactly so, on the evening next. 

           

One bright afternoon, the Liason rounded up all the servants for inspection. Sara stood, along with the other servants, thinking how bland and gray the courtyard looked now, when just a few days ago it was vivid and blue with their own merry decorations. The Liason walked along the servants, checking their mouths, hair and nails – looking disgusted with his own duties.

Suddenly, they heard the rumble and blare of the Bifrost waking up beyond the gates, out in the open sea. Moments passed, and the Liason had reached the end of the line, when a bass of hooves thundered across the stone courtyard where all the mortals stood – their hands open and in front of them.

Lord Thor spotted them, laughed and trotted over first, followed by Loki, on his black steed, who slowly followed behind him.

Thor dismounted his horse, still laughing

“I see we have more hands out, eager to pick my pockets,” he said, approaching the Liason, who bowed to him, quickly. Sara looked around her and knelt as everyone else swooped to their knees. She caught a quick sight of her master, looking pale in the sun that reflected off his raven hair. He had a pleasant smile on his face, and his cheeks were slightly pink with the exhilarated flush of a chase across the galaxies.

“No, my Lord. It is just an inspection,” the Liason said, blankly.

“An inspection?” Thor laughed, screwing up his face, confused. “For  _what_? I’ll do it for you!” He walked along the line, pointing his fingers toward every other servant and mockingly barking orders “This one!” “That one!”  “That’ll do, that’ll do – yes.” A few chuckles rallied across the line of bowed heads and the Liason, in turn, shot each with a stern look, silencing them.

Sara saw Thor’s boots stop in front of her.

“And….who is  _this_?” He said, his eyes dancing to the Liason and down to Sara.

“She’s new, my lord. But a mortal. She’s an Otherlander and carries no loyalties.”

“I would hope so,” Thor said, not listening to him and twinkling his eyes down to her.

“You may speak, maid.” The Liason hissed.

“Good morning, my lord,” Sara said, feeling suddenly aware of Loki staring in their direction, his eyes burning them. She dared not glance in his direction. A cold dream rushed into her mind and she struggled to hear Thor or the Liason’s words as they addressed her.

 “Don’t you agree?” The Liason prompted Sara and, snapping out of it, she nodded at them both.

“Yes, yes, my lord,” she replied. Automatically.  _Yes, my lord. No, my lord._  Always safe.

Thor reached a strong hand toward her face and stroked it upward to look at him. She squinted in the sun which refracted off his golden hair, and exploded in an orb of light around him and she understood, immediately, what a God looked like. She blinked.

“By Valhalla, she’s very pretty. Look at those eyes,” he chuckled to the Liason, his booming voice suddenly low and discreet. The hooves of Loki’s steed shifted and clicked on the stone, and distracted her, while Lord Thor’s twinkling eyes leapt to her breasts. “And  _those_  could tame a wild horse!” He barked out a laugh. She’d endured far coarser and direct talk than this so she only nodded and said naught else.

“You have not poisoned my meat, maiden,” he said.“For that I thank you. Not that poison could kill me!” He yelled, boastful, toward the rest of the servants. Then back to Sara, “or that some good meat would kill  _you_.” He winked.

Sara gave a soft smile. Thor laughed. Then, the Liason tried to let out a laugh but his expressionless face made it come across queasy. Sara kept her smile pasted on her mouth as Thor strode away, his shadow brushing off her face and hitting her head with the full heat of the sun. She felt Loki’s eyes on her, staring at her plainly now before all the servants. With a glance of his wrist, he shifted his horse slightly and his smile was gone. Then, without a word to the Liason, he clicked off after his brother. When the Lords exited, the servants relaxed. Save Sara, who looked after Loki’s exit and shot her eyes back to the ground when the Liason cleared his throat at her.

That evening, Sara went to Loki’s chambers where she was to spend more quiet hours, out of his view, cleaning surfaces that held no dust – star or otherwise – and tidying places that had not been touched for days. The only changes in his chambers was the absence from the stack of one book, the most decrepit and rare one. The only sounds to befriend her while she worked were the crackling hearth and the dark, unsettling silence that crept over her body as the hour grew longer.

She worked on a red smudge on the wall, fairly certain it was blood. She felt eyes on her once again. She turned around, stunned to see her master. Here was no shimmering vision, but Loki – solid in form – sulking in the giant chair, staring at the fire, seemingly unaware that she was even standing there.

She froze at the sight of him, fearing to be punished for even being in his presence, much less alone.

For an awkward moment, she stood there, holding the rag, not sure what to do next. She got a good look at her master for the first time up close. His headgear was gone and his face was young but looked fixed in a troubled thought. A jet of long black hair hung around his pale face which, now that she got a closer look at it, was not at all ugly as the other maids had told her. Dark shadows danced under his eyes which weren’t green now but bright blue and striking – a watery vale of shifting thoughts as they studied the flames before him in an intense, unblinking gaze. He could’ve been a statue.

Deciding to speak or not, she closed her lips when he spoke first, without so much as glancing in her direction.

“So tell me, servant, how did you like my brother, Thor?”

Sara hesitated and averted her eyes.

“Very well, my lord,” she said, then remembering she added, “he’ll make a great king. Praise Odin.”

Loki smiled to himself and sank further into the chair. She wasn’t sure if this was the right answer, but it was the only answer as far as she could see.

His hand rested on the edge of the seat and he raised just one finger, in a gesture that she could continue her work and she quickly returned to wiping the smudge off the wall (was it blood?) and her heart pounded in her chest.

For a while, the only sound in the room was the fire crackling and her rag wiping along the wall and crevices. Unlike the illusion, he occasionally cleared his throat, or turned a page in a book on his lap.

She dropped her rag. When she stooped to pick it up, she noticed in her periphery that his head was turned in her direction and he was observing her with one leg draped over the massive arm of the chair, which exposed his body more fully in the light of the fire and she could make out that he was quite tall, as he was lean. It was only next to his towering brother that he looked slight.

He was half-suited, wearing black pants, and boots but no vest or suit…only a dark tunic, loose around his chest. She didn’t dare turn around and face him. Waves of dark energy radiated over her body, in her skin, just like the night in the garden when she first saw him in the window.

Rag in hand, she resumed wiping the stardust that collected on the glassy ledges of his windows. For a moment, she thought she saw them dance like particles around her fingertips as she moved her rag to them.

“What is your name?” He spoke, his voice light and soft as a child’s innocent question.

“It’s Sara…” She answered, finally. “Of the Seven Villages, my lord.”

“And do you miss your family, Sara of the Seven Villages?” He asked, with a hint of a jest in his voice. His liquid voice pronounced every consonant and syllable and it enhanced the silence, turning the sound of crackling fire into rich music in her ears.

“Every day, sir.”

 “Well, they  _are_ dead,” he said, cavalierly.

She paused in her motion, baffled that he’d know her family was dead.

“Oh,” his voice dropped into a conspiratorial whisper and he leaned forward a bit. “I don’t read minds if you are wondering. It’s the eyes…they tell, well… _everything._ ”

She nodded, uneasily, unable to look at him for long. His smile deepened at her, a little  _too_ knowingly. She quickly returned her attention back to the ledge, which looked out over Asgard, shining in the dark. For a split second, she wished to evaporate and join the golden lights below – where she would not feel her senses unsettled and exposed like this. His eyes  _were indeed_  probing.

“I’ve been told I have pretty eyes but I don’t see much in them,” she said, scrubbing a little harder than needs be.

“Undo your hair,” Loki said.

“My lord?” She turned to look at him. He was reclining in the same position, watching her and the smile was gone. It was clear it wasn’t a request. She turned back to the window, dropped the rag and untied her hair and it tumbled around her shoulders. She picked up the rag and resumed sliding it along the sill, digging her fingers into the cloth to stop them trembling.

“Turn around and face me,” he said.

 Sara obeyed.

“Come here,” he said, not moving his body in the slightest. Sara set down the rag and stood in front of his chair. The flames licked outward from the hearth, cloaking her back in heat.

Loki looked up at her face, searching it with eyes that now took on a gentle, almost pleading look of compassion, or sadness, she could not tell. A few concerned lines deepened along his forehead. Her heart thudded so hard under his gaze that she wanted to tear herself from out of it. But she stopped herself. This was the damned power of Gods. To make mortals leave their skin, exposed to their veins and vulnerable.

“Why do you fear me?” Loki cocked his head to one side, his voice curious and light, his eyebrows upward in an air of concern. “Is it because I am a God or because you are not?”

“Neither, my lord,” Sara answered, not sure if it was a riddle. She remembered Maddy’s warning that their master was keen at manipulation.

“Why did you not grovel when coins were thrown at your feet? You must be poor.”

Sara nodded slightly. “I earn my keep, my lord.”

Quickly, his soft expression went hard and serious. “I’ve watched you. You do not glance in my direction. Do I offend you?”

Sara shook her head.

“Do we bore you? Us Gods with our petty wars and feasts?” She detected a hint of bitterness behind the words, although his face was calm.

“Not at all, my lord.”

“I do not like to be bored,” he said, brooding and petulant, gazing back to the flames.

Again, Sara found herself awkward with no reply. A half-grin crept up one side of his face. Sara got the impression, suddenly, that he was calculating. Or toying with her. Unsure what to do, she kept her gaze to the ground and waited for a gesture that indicated she could return to cleaning. 

Instead, his blue eyes darted up from the fire straight to hers

“Unlace yourself,” Loki said. His voice enunciated and slid off each consonant. His face didn’t budge as she looked at him, wondering if he was jesting, like his brother earlier in the day. The fire crackled.

He stared at her. He wasn’t joking.

They were hungry eyes. Transfixed by them, Sara reached her fingers up to the laces of her frontpiece. His eyes glanced down the length of her body as she unknotted and loosened the ties. She felt her breasts relax away from the restraints and she could breathe better but found her breaths were coming in shallow and rapid still.

Without removing his eyes from hers, Loki set the book aside, stood up in a rush and took a few steps toward her. His boots clicked on the smooth floor. He flicked his wrist and the strings unbound themselves and sailed across the room.

He paused a foot in front of her. Over his shoulder, she could make out only the flaming tip of a torch mounted on the far wall behind him. She was eye length with his chest where a faint chill emanated from its lean muscle.

“Your dress,” he said, sterner now, a muscle clenched in his jaw. Sara looked down to untie the ribbon around her skirt. Loki lifted her face up to him with a finger under her jaw, gently as a leaf on a branch.

 “No,” he said. “You must look at  _me_  as you do it.”

She kept her eyes fixed on his, gleaming green now, as she raised her hands to the sleeves on her shoulders and slid down her gown, exposing her breasts, cold for a moment, before the heat of the fire reached them.

Loki scanned down her breasts and a pleased grin spread up his face.

Looking up at him still, Sara reached behind her and felt for the knot in her skirt, untied it and let the skirt fall.

She now stood stark naked with Loki before her, his arms behind his back, studying her body. She was not sure how to go about this as she had never been with a man before, much less a God, and her eyes flicked, uncertain, toward the direction of the bed (she knew that much at least).

Noticing this, Loki laughed, a deep, mischievous laugh that echoed in her chest.

“Oh, no, no,” he said, grinning wide. The firelight danced in his eyes and Sara looked up into them, dazing her.

His face went serious and hard, then. With inhuman strength, Loki quickly grabbed her shoulder with his opposing hand and flipped her around. He seized her waist with his other hand, and yanked her hips back toward him, and she felt the black leather of his pants against the soft backs of her bare thighs.

He kicked her feet apart quickly with his foot, spreading her legs, and he released her shoulder from the grip of his palm and curled her hair into his fist, pulling her head back onto his shoulder. He pressed his lips hard onto her ear and hissed in a hurried, dangerous voice:

“You will not speak to Lord Thor, or to any man, only to  _me_. You smile at no one but  _me,”_  Sara struggled to speak and to stop her, he tightened his grip in her hair and hurried on. “You will come here every night, as I wish, when I wish, and if I hear or so much as  _sense_ that you desire anyone but me, if I feel even a  _tremor_  of it in the air, I will end you…”

He slid his large hand across her waist, curling her back to him with his arm, tenderly, while releasing her hair with his other hand and sliding his long fingers down to her neck, cupping it in his grasp. He brought his lips softly down to the sides of her face and his voice softened and curled around every syllable as he spoke: “I will end you, if you disobey. I will take your pretty eyes and make them see no more.”

Sara gulped for air, unable to answer, for her head swam in cold and heat; desire and chaos flooded into her mind, like a spell. 

“Will you obey?” He whispered into her neck, then kissed it lightly with his lips. “Girl from the Seven Villages, will you obey me?”

She nodded slightly in his long-fingered grasp around her neck.

“Yes, my lord,” she heard her voice make out but her mind was gone as she waited, wanting him to end her there, to enter her and destroy her from the inside out.

He released his grip immediately, sliding his long hands down her bare body as he did so.

Sara stayed, facing away from him, catching her breath, trembling all over as Loki strode away, the doors opening for him as he exited his chambers.

The next few mornings, Sara struggled to focus on her work. From dawn to sundown, she scrubbed…

and cooked…

and washed…

and salted meals…

…and tried to remove her master’s words (and lips and hands) from her head, but she couldn’t. She didn’t smile at any of the lads from Thor’s hall who came bringing fish and fruits and a little bit of workday flirtations. Occasionally, she caught Maddy looking at her, assuming she’d lost another servant girl. Maddy was smart not to pry. After a servant entered any tower, especially Loki’s, speaking about it was trouble for both the asker and the teller.

The days went by and Sara waited for the call to attend her master’s chambers, but none came. Even the other girls, who were usually seen darting across the garden in the dead of night from both Thor and Loki’s towers, were nowhere to be seen. The Lords had gone over the Bi-Frost, Sara finally caught word, and the servant’s duties were slacked, as they now only had to serve Odin and the queen.

The slow days of little work passed and only once, while Sara was changing in her quarters, did she sense she was being watched. She opened the window in her attic room and saw only a night raven on a branch, staring at her curiously with one black eye.

Finally, word arrived that the lords would be returning, victorious over something that Sara couldn’t figure out and knew not to ask. The servants rushed to polish every single goblet, to kill the finest birds and pick the ripest fruits from the trees. Sara’s duty was polishing all the silver.

During the feast, Asgardians and foreign nobles alike arrived to celebrate, in shining armor and fine dresses of tan and gold – in homage to their hosts. The servants, all mortals, stood along the gilded walls, silent, on guard, nerves on edge – uneasy to be catering to so many Gods and demi-gods, whose games and tantrums often cost the mortal onlookers lives and limbs. King Odin and Queen Frigga arrived once, greeted and exited – leaving the revels to their sons.

When Loki arrived, he was all smiles and casting illusions into the air for their applause – chariots dancing across suns, panthers prowling across tables and pouncing off the startled laps of the guests. In her short time there, Sara had never seen her master, and everyone, in such a light mood. But, just as Maddy warned, the evening wore on and the drunken revels grew loud and out of hand. An errant fireball flew out of Odin’s palace and singed off the arm of a mortal, a horse-apprentice who was merely standing outside by the stables. Maddy was right, foreign feasts were a dangerous business.

Thor was the center of the hall’s attention as he re-enacted a battle that gathered applause, guffaws, and cheers. He leapt and roared and threw punches in the air, and all save one listened in rapt attention.

Loki sulked at the end of the long feast table, his arms resting on each side of the plate before him, his ram’s head lowered. His quiet eyes scanned the adoring guests, their goblets rising and falling in repsonse to his brother’s theatrics. Occasionally, when spoken to, he would tilt his chin toward the speaker, break into a wide grin, only to return to a sullen glare moments later.

Sara saw Loki motion to the Wine-master, a jovial, round-faced mortal who lived for his vineyards. It was his highest honor to pour wine for the Agardians. So, he ecstatically hurried over to Loki and bent to listen to the Asgaridan prince’s compliment on his wine when instead he was met with a request that made him frown, glance up at Sara’s fixed spot in the attending line, and hurry over to her.

“Fill the Lord’s drink, girl. It’s an order.” He shoved the jug of wine into her arms.

“Which lord?” Sara was baffled. Tower servants didn’t pour wine.

“Lord Loki’s, you daft cow. Just don’t spill it. It’s rare. Now,  _go._ ”

Sara moved quietly along the periphery of the hall, clutching the heavy wine jug, careful to avoid the fray and the eye-line of the dignitaries, still in rapt attention to Thor’s play-by-play.

She saw Loki’s eyes follow her as she made her way to his quiet end of the table. She gave a quick bow and noticed he looked more tired than normal, if that was possible for a God.

“Some wine for you, my lord,” she said, cautiously.

“I’m not thirsty.” He sulked and glanced away. Sara wasn’t sure why she was called over to fill his cup in the first place.

“Of course, my lord. This is Valhallan wine. It will restore your spirits.”

Sullenly, he watched her pour wine, carefully, into his goblet. His eyes then moved toward Thor, who raised a toast, praising their victory and honoring himself as the hand that feeds all of them, and the whole kingdom. For a moment, just a moment, she saw a line of water well up in Loki’s lids as his eyes flicked darkly from Thor and back to her. His lip trembled.

“There, my lord,” she curtseyed again, holding the jug to her chest. She went to leave but he spoke quickly, looking up at her sidelong, without turning his head.

“Have you thought of me while I was gone?” he asked. Thor let out a war cry and the guests clapped, cheering. Loki’s lids flinched, but his blue eyes didn’t, as he stared up at her – intent on her reply.

She stopped, and tightened her hold on the jug.  _Of course_   _she had_ , but she remembered the warnings about her master. He could be tricking her to answer too personally and find herself in some treasonous state for playing too close.

“You  _do_  know I’ve been gone, do you not?” he said, smiling.

“Yes, my lord,” she finally stuttered out. “We’ve all wished you a speedy and healthy return.”

His smile vanished. She had replied too lightly.

“I asked after  _you_ ,” he said, his eyes flashing green. His voice again slipped and slid over each word, entracing her. “Did  _you_ think of me while I was gone?”

“Every day, my lord,” she cast her eyes down, curtseyed and turned from him – cursing her reply. She would, for the rest of her days, wonder how different life would’ve been had she lied at that moment.

When she was no longer needed, Sara broke off from the servant line and took the private path back to her quarters. It was a discreet short cut for those in Asgard who did not want to be seen and so servants used it most. It started as an unused balcony that jutted out in a long crescent from Odin’s palace, then descended into gilded stairs that led to the grounds below.

Tonight, however, this balcony path was no place for a walk in the fresh air like she hoped, but rather a dumping ground of rubble and crates of gilded weaponry and chests of jewels and shining armor and strange shapes that glowed and made strange, humming noises as he passed. Smells emanated from them, some carrying the scent of death from faraway places. She tiptoed around these objects and weapons on the ground, and made her way deeper into the bowels of crates, stacked high. When she got to the other side of the balcony, where the gilded stairs would snake her down into the servants path, she found nothing but more high-stacked metal chests and crates blocking it.

She reached a dead end. One axe poked through a crate and dripped silver blood, glowing phosphorous in a pool by her feet. She pricked it with her finger. Her own blood turned cold and a flush of freezing air pulsed around her. Then, a deep chuckle.

“Now, here I find you, eyeing our weapons!”

“Oh, no, my lord,” Sara gulped, terrified at how it looked to Lord Thor who stood behind her, his red cape swaying in the pulse of air settling around her. Terrified to be seen by Loki consorting with him, she curtseyed quickly and begged her leave as she passed around his giant mass, to exit the way she came.

 “I apologize, my lord, I am lost. I must leave and find a new path to my quarters.”

Thor leaned against a crate, smiling broad and waved his hand casually, like  _go on_  and then called out after her.

“Have you thought of me,  _Sara_?”

Sara turned, unnerved that he knew, or even remembered her first name and used it so familiarly at that. She dug out her rote reply. “Indeed, you will make us a great king, my lord.”

He chuckled and his eyes crinkled, merrily and he winked at her. “You know my meaning, maiden.”

She stood frozen, watching Thor sidestep a massive, spiked ball that he easily, with his legendary strength, could’ve just thrust aside. His eyes looked strange as well – they glowed green, when she was certain that Lord Thor’s eyes were blue.

“I must say ‘no,’ my lord, I do not know it,” she curtseyed and turned her back to Thor and quickly retraced her way through the rubble, torn in terror by Thor’s presence behind her and Loki’s warning to her.

 The air pulsed around her again, and she froze at the silhouette of Loki, standing before her, blocking the way. He was still in cape and full suit but his head was bare of helmet. Instinctively, Sara looked behind her and realized how it would look to Loki when Thor emerged from behind her.

Loki silently, and in thought, took a few steps toward her and lifted a giant mace from off the ground. Sara wanted to explain that Thor had approached  _her,_ though she was sure this new realm, these new Gods - reason would not matter to them.

He glanced over the mace, sadly.

“Such primitive, brutal devices,” Loki said. “As if  _these_  can win the hearts of a kingdom. Might over  _mind_. Repulsive.” He looked mournfully at it, but held it still in his hand as he turned his head toward her. It dangled.

“Have you obeyed me?” He asked.

“Yes, my lord,” she said, trying not to sound frantic as she waited for the sound of Lord Thor’s footsteps to sound behind them, at any moment. His footsteps did not come.

Loki approached her. The mace swung in a pendulum. She couldn’t keep her eyes off it. It would be a brutal, but quick death. He took her chin in his hand, his fingers cold against her skin.

 He studied her, and raised an eyebrow.

“Have you obeyed me?” He repeated.

“Every word, my lord.”

He let the mace fall from his grasp and it landed in a clatter at his feet.

Loki grabbed Sara’s shoulders – his thumbs crept around and under the hem of her blouse, hooked and poised to pull it down. He pinned her against a crate and bent his face over hers and Sara opened her lips for a kiss and he hurriedly spoke into her mouth.

“Have you obeyed me?” He repeated through clenched teeth, almost spitting it out as an order.

“Yes,” Sara said, giving up, out of breath, feeling faint. Before she had even finished the “s,” on yes, his thumbs had yanked the blouse down from her dress and with a flick of his wrist, the cords came loose and his hands were upon her breasts and then all over her body, his warm mouth hungrily biting and kissing them. In his fever, he knocked her back against the crates of weapons again and they rattled.

As his lips groped hard and hungrily across her neck and breasts, she pressed her hands on his strong, lean shoulders to steady herself.

Blunt edges of exposed hilts and broken spears poked into her back, but she didn’t mind as his hand slid under her long skirt, up her thigh and over the soft skin of her rear, at which point a groaned escaped his mouth while he pushed his lips to hers, and pressed his warm tongue into her mouth. His fingers traveled over her bare sex and he smiled in the dark.

“You’re wet for me,” he said into her mouth. His eyes gleamed blue now and danced with mischief. He bent to kiss her lips again when a voice called out from the balcony beyond the dark maze of crates.

“My lord, Loki!”

Loki’s lips paused over hers, his eyes opened.

“Are you out here? There’s a duel in the hall!” The voice called out, frantic. “Blood is being spilt in the hall of Odin!”

Loki exhaled, closed his eyes and cursed to himself.

He flicked his head to the side, toward the voice, exposing a throbbing vein in his neck that Sara watched, breathlessly. He called out to the voice: “Well, break it up and call a truce.”

“They are  _too_ drunk to listen, my lord!” The voice replied, more urgently.

Loki flicked his hand in dismissal and yelled: “well, then cut off the heads of the instigators and resume the fest.” He returned his probing lips to Sara’s pale neck, groaning with pleasure as he bit into it like a soft fruit. 

“But, my lord!” the voice cried out. “Lord  _Thor_  has started it!”

Still holding Sara’s waist in his hands, Loki’s eyes flared green as he exploded in a rage and shouted toward the balcony, spittle flying out of his mouth.

“Well, then by Odin’s hand, take off  _his_  head and be done with it! Must I clean up after him? Leave me be!”

He slid a hand around Sara’s neck and sank his teeth under her ear and Sara’s knees turned to liquid, and she steadied herself on the edge of a sword hilt so as not to buckle in his arms.

Then glass exploded and showered down around them. Loki whipped around from her and gaped in amazement as several bodies soared over their heads and fell, still screaming, off the heights of Odin’s tower.

At that, Sara saw all of Loki heighten and tighten – every muscle clenched, his fist, his jaw, his eyes.

“Damn him,” he snarled and shot his hand out and a team of dark blades flew into it. He slid them into his belt and Sara stood, stunned, as Loki called out to the voice: “Call the guards in!” He shot his arm out to Sara and pointed at her.

“ _You,_ ” his voice curled. “My chambers.  _Now._ ”

She was gathering herself together to make a run, but blinked her eyes and started when she found herself standing alone in Loki’s long empty chamber. As her senses adjusted, Loki’s giant bedroom contracted in the light of a roaring fire. As she struggled to gather her senses about her, she jumped again as a guard clashed through Loki’s doors, marched to the heart of the chamber, turned his back to her and froze in a locked battle position.   

She sat before the fire (not on the furniture, where mortals were not allowed to sit) and watched colors shoot across the high windows. Lightning forked across the sky. The long minutes yawned past her as she waited in his chamber. Then a thought dawned on her that couldn’t have dawned when her master’s hands were sliding up her thighs, his wet lips kneading into her neck. It was a puzzle: how could Thor have started a fight when he should’ve been on the balcony at the time? Perhaps he passed by after Loki had pinned her against the crates and she didn’t notice. Her thought was interrupted by the release of the chamber doors.

She heard Loki enter in a quick stride, his boots clicking on the floor and his clear voice echoed along the chamber, not seeing her. She stood up but the immense chair blocked her from his view.

“I’ll have you flogged. Where is she?” He hissed at the guard in the room. “Has anyone entered here? Taken her? Touched her?”

The guard shook his block of a head in the negative.

Loki spun around in a fury, flicking the edge of his cape with his hand, hissing.

“Well, then, where is she?” He spat.

Sara stepped away from the shelter of the chair and his eyes and head darted cat-like quick in her direction.

“Leave us,” he said to the guard. “Block the door.”

The guard slowly marched out of the room and Loki slowly marched toward Sara. He unfastened his cape and flung it away. His horned helmet shimmered in gold as it vanished from his head.

“My Lord,” said the Liason, from the foyer outside. “If anyone requests your presence, sir?”

“Kill them,” he said, staring at Sara.

Sara watched the doors close behind the guards, then bowed her head as Loki strode toward her. Lightning and streams of fire still shot across the night outside.

“What has happened, my lord?” Sara asked, looking toward the windows. “Are we under attack?”

“You may call it…”

A severed head, its face purpled and mashed, hit the high window with a thud and bounced off.

“…a family quarrel,” he smirked, pleasantly. He pulled Sara into him and buried his lips into her neck.

“Mmm, your skin’s still fresh,” he whispered, grazing his lips down her still-loosened clothes. She could hear him inhaling her smell as an animal. Then he growled. “My patience has worn thin. I have no more of it.”

Loki tore the cords off her waist. What took her minutes to wrap, just snapped off like tiny threads in his hands. Before Sara could think next, Loki ripped the bodice of her dress open with his bare hands, no magic, exposing her. He feasted his eyes down her body as he tore the rest of her dress from off her body, bunching it in his hands before tossing it, without a glance, into the raging fire.

“Lie down right there.” He pointed to the ground in front of the hearth. He undid his suit, revealing a strong, lean chest, untouched by much hair, almost like a boy’s, but for the muscles of a man.

She consented to his whims, and stretched on the hard floor in front of the fire, watching as he got on his knees, quickly unfastening his pants.

“Look at me,” he demanded in a soft growl.

Loki grabbed her calves and grunted as he yanked her toward him, so her bottom was closer to him, under him. Unsure what to do with her hands, daring not to touch him, she balled them to fists and braced the ground, keeping her eyes on his.

“You will scream tonight,” he said, his teeth glinting under his smile. “And be  _mine._ ”

He shook his head in frustration at his pants and boots, which he could only unfasten but not be rid of quickly enough, so he exhaled and closed his eyes, moved his lips rapidly and held his palms outward. In a second, a gust of air pulsed against the fire, and he was bare, like her. He fell onto his hands over her, and crawled up the length of her body, with his lips and groping hands guiding him, and finally pressed his weight on top of her. Long black strands fell down across his face as she looked up at him.

“Open your legs for me,” he whispered, panting in her mouth.

She obliged him.

“Good girl,” he replied as she spread them. She didn’t dare look away from his eyes, as he commanded, but she felt him throbbing on the inside of her thigh – long and hard as granite.

Loki grasped her chin and moved it aside and kissed down the length of her neck, deliberately as though searching for the perfect place to devour and end her.

“Will it hurt, my lord? Will it hurt?” She caught herself asking, out of breath, in pleasure, not thinking, but the question escaped. “I do fear pain a great deal.”

His lips stopped moving and he lifted his head out of the corners of her neck and looked down at her, an oddly mortal look of confusion over his face.

“Pain? What pain?” He whispered, his blue eyes searched hers, puzzled. “Have you – not been bedded before?”

“No, my lord,” she answered quickly, her chest heaving under his bare chest. “I’m a maiden.”

A grin spread across his face. He looked down at her, breathing heavily.

 “Oh, yes. It will hurt.”  Delight danced in his eyes, but his breathing turned calm as he dropped his voice low, and stroked his fingers across her sex while looking at her face. “Pain’s an illusion. But…the illusion’s painful.” Loki bent his head into her neck again and kissed down it and she panted louder than him. He pinned her arm down with his hand and slid two fingersinside of her, slowly and then rhythmically.

Sara struggled to not make a noise out of place, to not lose her wits, but the pressure was deep and sharp and passed very quickly under waves that tingled up her back, arching it and raising her waist just inches away from the pale skin of his torso. She writhed from his working fingers, biting her lip – struggling not to cry out. Watching him helped. Her masters’ throat above her, the black dashes of his hair hanging below his jaw. He blinked his eyes rapidly, concentrating on something far away.

“Now…” He said, satisfied. “You’re ready.” A smooth, hot mass pressed against her sex. “There…” He whispered. “ _Yield_  to me.”

She took a deep breath and relaxed as Loki, in one slow thrust, entered her. She gasped as he moved inside, deeper, for what felt like it would never end. There was plain and pleasure side by side. As she thought she couldn’t take it, that she might have to scream and fight it away, he then slid his hand up her leg up and lifted it over his lean shoulder and towered over her, her leg bending back onto herself. He then began to thrust into her and the pain and pleasure multiplied.

She gasped as the end of Loki hit inside her, over and over. As promised, she kept her eyes up on his and didn’t fight against it.

“That’s a good girl,” he smiled, deliciously.

He closed his eyes and his mouth parted and he shuddered visibly as he moved in and out of her -– as if power were being sucked out of him, and he was trembling against it, fighting to keep it.      

He took her like that for the whole evening, until she, the silent servant, finally screamed. And screamed some more.


	2. Tales from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a short, transitional chapter – a little character piece with a bit of eroticism. It features a very, very young Loki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline to Thor (film): Days before Thor’s Coronation scene. Plus, a flashback to childhood.

TALES FROM ASGARD - CHAPTER TWO

Loki watched her. It was the easiest task of the day. Nothing had been out of order in Asgard, but her. Even his brother – whose spontaneous fits of rage launched riots and fights in the halls – served as a stable piece of the puzzle: his unpredictability was predictable. Otherwise, every moment was an enigma. On good days – like this one, where the shade from the trees passed back and forth across his pale face – all could be solved with tricks, reading or simply listening. Save for the newest mortal who came to serve. She had come to his chamber, quiet and obedient. She yielded to him, quiet and obedient. He should have done away with her but he watched her instead. She was compliant to him, it seemed, in all ways but one – she refused to make sense to him.

From the balustrade, under the shade of trees, he watched her kneel and work a weed out of the base of a tree that stood in the garden. Her eyes focused on the task at hand as his brother, Lord Thor, swaggered toward her on the path through the servant cottages. Like prey lifting its head at the sound of the hunter, she looked up, spotted him, dropped the weed, and calmly walked back to her cottage and closed the door. Thor glanced in her direction, amused, and chuckled. He then lifted his head and spotted his brother at the peak of his tower and raised a hand in greeting. Loki turned around.

***

The little boy crouched on the stone floor of the balcony, heated by the sun. The eggs, no larger than shore pebbles, vibrated and shook, and shifted their colors in the sunlight. First scarlet, then violet, then emerald…

They rolled to and fro, erratic, and the boy made a border with his pale hands so they would not roll away.

“They are almost borne,” the boy said, his blue eyes widening, as the girl of golden skin sat across from him and squinted in the sunshine, puzzled by the eggs.

“I thought you were to show me your magic. You said you would show me ‘something glorious.’ These are just… pebbles,” she pouted.

He ignored her, though the whole spectacle was for her. She was beautiful even as she pouted. Even in her disappointment, the boy thought her beautiful. He licked his lips as the eggs grew bigger because once they hatched, he would see her smile and she’d be impressed by his discovery. He had rushed to find the eggs, buried under the shade of a tree that stood in the garden of the servant cottages. He had ignored his mother’s express command to ride out with his brother so as to keep him out of trouble. He cloaked himself as best he could and, at the quiet hour of dawn, he dug for six hours to find the eggs and bring them out, so he could show the girl. He had loved her from afar, in the only way a young boy could. He was too awkward to gaze at her directly. It took months of seeking the courage to speak to her and now she was here, before him – Anastazia, the noble daughter of the Head Counsellor to King Odin. One day, it was expected, she would be his wife.

A blob appeared in a crack on the phosphor shell, followed by two tiny horns and a squeal.

“What are they?” She asked.

“They are trowlenites,” the boy said, out of breath, as each one hatched before his eyes. “My father says they come from the stars and land in the ground….”

“That is silly. Things are born in the ground, not in the stars. Perhaps your father is lying,” she said and then added, lowering her eyes, “Praise Odin.”

“My father never lies,” the boy said, holding back a strong desire to growl at her. His mother, the Queen, taught him to be polite – always. To sit and listen with attention, or at least pretend to if it were a girl speaking to him. He could do this. “He always tells the truth. Always. You must look closer.”

A few more horns appeared, followed by scaled limbs and goo that dripped onto the ground as little creatures – no more the size of bugs – rolled out of their shells, squeaking.

Anaztasia squealed as one of them sprouted on all six legs and leapt into her lap, leaving a puff of blue smoke as it did. She looked at him then and the sunlight made her gold eyes burn like old stars. The boy smiled.

Then a shadow loomed across her face and cut a man-shaped silhouette across the hot stones of the yard.

“And what are these? Another one of your tricks?” The shadow chuckled and the boy lifted his pale head and squinted up at the large mass that was his brother, Thor. Tall even for his thirteen years, Thor’s hair was as gold as Anastazia’s eyes and it disappeared in the sunlight. “My brother, as you see, Ana, is very good at tricks.”

“It is no trick! They’re trowlenites, brother! Very rare. When they are old enough, they will be able to fly and I can ride them. I will take Anastazia on them, too,” he turned back to the girl, who was now gazing up at his brother. “We could take them to the Bifrost and fly them around the Realms and then –”

“You have a large imagination, Loki,” Thor said, intrigued. He kneeled down beside him but did not sit. He was clearly just returning from some chase. Loki noticed a wide, red gash across his thigh, freshly cut and the blood was just drying.

One of the trowlenites leapt up with a squeal and plunged its tiny fangs into his thigh and Thor laughed and gave it a swat, smashing it.

“NO!” Loki yelled, as he watched Thor crumble the creature in his fingers as if it was dirt and wiped it off. He winked at Anastazia.

Loki shoved him off balance and he toppled over. Thor only laughed but did not hit back, which infuriated Loki more, so he tackled him.

“They are only bugs, brother!” He laughed as he parried each of Loki’s blows, all directed toward his face. “You are a man now! Don’t be so soft! You do not cry over dead bugs anymore.”

At this, Loki heard Anastazia giggle. He immediately hopped off his brother and sat on the steps, calmly and coolly, as the remaining globs of horns and legs trotted over to him, sensing the direction of his presence.

“I needed four, that’s all,” Loki said, putting on an indifferent face for her sake though his heart wrenched inside at the red goo on the ground where the trowlenite had been smashed. “And you have left me three.”

He glanced at Anastasia who looked at Loki with her beautiful little eyes. He felt happy he did not continue to fight his brother or else he would’ve been pummeled in her presence and the shame would’ve killed him.

“And why did you need four?” Thor asked, brushing himself off and plopping himself next to his brother, putting an arm around him as one of the creatures hopped onto Loki’s lean leg and then to his palm which he opened for it. Thor pretended to go for the trowlenite and Loki gave Thor a soft punch backwards to hold him off.

“I was going to raise them as a family,” Loki said, gazing at the scarlet bug that now had already grown to the size of a large nut. It could fit easily in the pocket of his tunic. He could put it in his mother’s skirts and wait for the inevitable squeal as she discovered it.

“A family?” Thor repeated, clearly confused. As usual.

“Yes,” Loki said, glancing at Anaztasia. “One female and three males. You have killed the female. Now they can’t make children.”

Anastazia blushed at the mention of children…

“Children?” Thor screwed up his face.

“Yes,” Loki said, firmly, his patience with Thor growing thin. The creatures hopped onto his lap, nipping at one another and squeaking. “Children.” He looked at Anastazia, feeling that he could be bold enough to do so.

“I should like children very much,” she said, to herself, looking down at the large bug crawling around in her hand.

Excited by her statement, Loki smiled at her and added in a hurry, “they could be our family. They could teach us to fly. You could be the mother. I’ll be the father.”

Thor looked at his brother with a blank expression that even Loki couldn’t decipher. Thor looked from him to Anastazia and burst out laughing.

“You’ve gone mad, brother!” Thor said.

To Loki’s amazement, Anastazia broke out into a flurry of giggles. Then her giggles turned into laughter, then uncontrollable laughter. Loki watched her hide her mouth behind the back of her hand. The two of them laughed and Loki looked between them, uncertain.

“A family of bugs?” Thor wiped his eyes, “Bugs that will be big enough to fly to other planets? I am not as clever as you, brother, I grant you, but I think you sound like a madman.”

Anastazia continued to laugh louder now, and the sound of it sent a ball of rage into Loki’s throat, where it always found its place.

Two horns blew in the distance, signaling the end of afternoon – the time when Thor reported to their father.

“It’s not madness, it could happen!” Loki yelled at Thor, over the blare of the horn. “You have no imagination.”

He fumed as his brother patted him on the head and stood up, his shadow blocking the heat of the sun as it cloaked itself over Loki. He watched, in horror, as Anastazia dropped one of trowlenites from her lap, disinterested, stood up, and still hiccupping from laughter, put her soft hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“Must you go?” She said. She forgot Loki’s presence entirely, he could sense it.

“I go to my father, malady,” Thor replied, not looking at her though she blushed at his charm. A blush that Loki did not put there. He gathered the bugs in his hands, his heart pounding from defeat.

“My good, mad brother,” Thor smiled, amused. “Come with me. Let’s give our father a good tale. You are more clever with words than I. Ana can watch over your bugs.”

Anazstasia looked disappointed to be so dismissed. That she was clearly sad to not join Thor made Loki’s face burn. He cupped the little bugs into his hands and blew on them, ignoring his brother. One of the bugs sprouted a tiny star-dusted wing.

He did want to join Thor as it was one of his favorite pranks - making up a wild tale with him that would send their father into a rage, only to tell him later it was just a story.

But he felt too small now, to even stand up, much less follow his brother’s call in front of Anastazia. The bugs crawled and opened their mouths up to him, as if he were their mother.

“What repulsive little things!” Anastazia said, glancing mischievously at Thor. “You’d leave me here with those?”

“Your choice, madam,” Thor said. “Loki. Come.”

“You go on, brother,” Loki said, recovering his voice, feeling the blood of embarrassment leave his face for a little. “I will join you later.”

Thor looked at Loki, unsure of what to make of it. Then he looked at Anastazia and shrugged, confused, and marched up the steps.

Loki felt a bit of hope restore as Ana paused at the foot of steps, though he wouldn’t look up at her. He felt her there. He could sense that she was staring after Thor… perhaps she would join Loki again, but as the bugs – bigger now, with long thin fangs, bursting with colors – had already hatched, the whole spectacle, the chance to impress, had passed by now. But still….

“If you come near them, they will come to you…” He mumbled, letting one of the bugs crawl onto his long finger. He held it out for her, but didn’t look at her.

Ana looked down at it, disappointed.

“Your brother is right, Loki. You are mad,” she said, and skipped up and away from him, leaving a trail of her flower scent. Loki didn’t budge. He let the trowlenite crawl around his finger on his outstretched hand. He heard her sweet voice call after his brother as she opened the massive door that led from the outside into the hall. Then he heard his brother’s booming laughter join hers as the tower door closed, silencing them from his ears. As the door sealed shut, he only blinked.

He gazed down at the little bugs, and felt a tenderness inside his heart as their gaping mouths opened up to him for food and their little claws dug sweetly into the flesh of his palms. He closed his long fingers around them, giving them shelter from the sun. He stared at his own silhouette, falling lopsided down the steps.

He clenched his fingers tight into fists, blinked twice and squeezed as hard as he could.

***

He could watch the new servant with more ease through her mirror. The looking glass’ chief power was its ability to bring light together and cast reflections. Rather than tax himself with self-projection, Loki used the mirror’s power to look in, to hear the whispers and secrets from the rooms that lay on the other side of its surface.

She only came in at night. The same time. Every night. A dreary life. Only a mortal could give no thought to a life like this. A regimen of serving others. The pathetic species not only obeyed rules but seemed to suckle them as if they were nurse milk. 

He lifted a small seeing stone from the arm of his chair before the fire. He turned it around with his long fingers as he watched her kneel at the windowsill, in some ritual he had not seen before. She then blew out her star candle, ready for another night of peaceful sleep. The kind of sleep he did not have.

Tonight, however, as he pierced the fire with his eyes and watched her image swim before him, he noticed that she had paused. The servant stood before her bed and glanced about the room as if looking for something in the air. Could she sense him? He pulled his energy back into his chest as her clear eyes grazed about the room, lighting on every object but the mirror.

Loki shifted in his seat and closed his eyes, concentrating, breathing in the heat of the flames in order to reel in the spectral hands of his power from touching Sara. With his lids closed, he could see her eyes still – singed into the front of his mind. He did not even need to take control of her eyes, to hypnotize her, since she gave of them so freely.

He heard her give off a sigh, it sounded almost like a moan to him. He felt himself stiffen along his leg, at the sound, and he kept his eyes shut, concentrating within. Then her alert state vanished and he could breathe again. He exhaled slowly and opened his eyes and resumed watching her, through the flames, through the frame of her mirror.

She undressed, her breasts round and light in the dark. He would call her to him again, he decided.

Her soft bones, her weakness, the scent of the mortal that clung itself to her, those eyes would betray him, would laugh at him – no, he would not call for her. He will send her to call for some other soft beast to warm his lap.

She bent over to pick up her nightshift from the floor. He felt his stiffness return. He sulked farther down into his chair, covered his lips with his fingers and looked away from the fire and down at the cold orb in his hand, to calm the rage in his loins.

Loki flicked his eyes up to the flames, and watched her stretch her arms above her head, exposing her nude body in full for his view. Against his will, he grew hard again. She worked the thin silk down over her soft arms and he wanted to bruise them. She shimmied slowly back and forth and worked the shift down over her, concealing her skin as it went, like a cloud moving over the suns, until finally her bare body, and all its frailties, sealed itself away from his view.

He held the orb, the cold of it keeping him steady as he tried to get himself down.

She pulled her hair before her shoulders and ran her fingers through it. He needed to grab it and yank it to him like a rein on a wild animal or else it would run far away from him.

She turned from the mirror, her round backside and curves pushing against the silk and taunting him from afar. Rather than sit on the edge of the bed and lie down – as most servants do – she did a strange thing: she crawled onto her bed, on all fours and pulled the sheets back and burrowed inside, like a small, wild animal.

He wanted to slide alongside her and get inside her body, to bite her on the neck and hold her with his teeth and burrow into her safe, simple ,world where there would be no more puzzles. If he kept her in his animal teeth, perhaps he could stay in that warm burrow forever.

She let out another sigh, before she fell into a sleep. A peaceful sleep. The kind he never had.

Then she rolled over, eyes closed and let out a soft moan and whispered, “Master.”

The orb shattered in his hand.


	3. Tales from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Asgard goes on alert while our quiet servant cools her loins. Her master just needs a bath and… a bit of perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline to Thor(film): Events in this chapter take place from Thor’s coronation scene all the way till just after the scene where Loki, returned from the Jotunheim fiasco, takes his leave of Lady Sif and the Warriors Three (“Is that what Asgard needs from it’s king?”)

The snow winds turned glittering Asgard into gauzy blurs of color; it’s majestic waterfalls to towers of ice. The mortals in the land struggled not to freeze as the Gods and God-like of Odin’s hall came and went around the kingdom, along the Bifrost, immune and untouched by the ravages of the winter.

The snows broke away, the low suns returned and, though winter’s fang still bit the crystalline air, everything shined in Asgard on the very day of Lord Thor’s coronation. The mortals, with shivering limbs dressed in their best and warmest garbs, joined the crowds and blessed the sudden sunlight. It was said to be a good omen for the favored prince.

Not that Sara would know. She was forbidden to attend.

Days upon days had passed and Loki neither called her to his chambers or placed her elsewhere to do her work. She could only clean her Master’s empty rooms and do his bidding – and he never bid her that way. Miserably, she watched other ladies, some of rank, hurry across her garden to his tower. She was not called for and there was a small part of her that was grateful to not be thrown in with the lot.

Sometimes he was cruel enough to have her beckoned to go shake awake one of the girls, as she’d been shaken awake days before. It was the worst torture. To top it off, after he had done with those girls, they were still free to travel into the towns, to cater the feasts in Odin’s Great Hall, to enter the festive chambers of Thor’s. But she was not.

Still, Sara refused to say anything unkind about her master, even when prompted by the looser-lipped servant girls, while hanging laundry, who would pull a sheet back and tell Sara about their encounter of the cruel lord, and how “sickly,” he was, one said. Or how he refused to take them to a “proper bed” as, at least, the gallant Thor did. Sara minded the Liason’s warning and resigned herself to not answer them or speak of him at all.

She was still forbidden to leave his grounds, even to attend Lord Thor’s grand coronation. She shovelled snow and, bitterly, listened to the pomp from afar. It wasn’t until spotting swarms of Palace Guard rushing past the gate that she sensed something had happened in Odin’s Hall.

 

In the courtyard, bedecked in red and white flowers, three mortal servants slowly turned, by their necks, from the gallows, their limbs dark with frostbite, their faces frozen, closed and seeing nothing. They stood as examples for treason (they had let the Jotuns in), insurgence (they were mortals, the Asgardians were gods) and, if you asked Maddy the headmaid, those bodies hung there because they knew too much.

 

 

Sara fed two small logs to the fire and Maddy barged into the hut – in a flurry of chatter about the coronation, the rumors of a break-in and the hangings that followed in lightning speed.

“Imagine that, girl! My hams an’ spreads still hot upon the tables and the Head Counsellor’s got these poor souls rounded up for treason and hanging from the riggings! The Arm of King Odin works his justice fast, I say! That’s one man I would not cross.”

She chuffed, and seeing Sara unmoved by the most exciting news mortals had witnessed in years – a spoiled celebration, a robbery by Frost Giants and a few executions all in one day – Maddy slammed her knapsack on Sara’s feet.

“Do you not hear me, girl?” Maddy asked.

Sara hardly heard much of what Maddy or anyone said anymore. She stared at the fireplace and couldn’t take her eyes away from it. She’d battled off a cold, finally, but it was not the warmth of the fire that transfixed her. She couldn’t glance at a fireplace without her loins tightening or her face going red or her mind drifting off to the very place where she’d been bedded and done for.

“What did they steal?” Sara asked, her mind absent. She wondered where her Master was in all this fray and cared little about the rest of the news.

“Well, as head maid I knows a thing or two about things or two,” she coughed into her fist, and the coughs were so violent, Sara patted her back and offered her water. Maddy shooed her away and continued, proudly. “An’ I’ve got it on highest authority that they was stealing in to hide in the Palace and kidnap our good Queen Frigga, hold her ransom.” Maddy shook her head, personally offended at the very idea.

The fire sputtered. Sara shivered and looked at Maddy, who leaned into her conspiratorially.

“Dangerous business being royal, I say.”

 

While Maddy dozed on a floor cot by the fire, Sara went about closing their hut for bed, for their five hours of sleep. She puffed on the starcandles and out they went in small shocks of glitter. Suddenly, the walls rumbled. So did their stone floor. The glasses rattled on the shelves.

“By Odin’s patch, that damned thing will be the death of me!” Maddy said, darting awake and rolling over in the blankets. Sara rushed to the window to watch the giant tunnel of light explode from the Bifrost’s spear and fade into the sky, followed by dark and then utter silence. It was a beautiful sight. She never caught it’s dazzling display at night. Maddy mumbled in her sleep. “I never get a good rest with it banging up our walls all hours of the night.”

Later, just as Sara pulled up her ladder-door and finally crawled into bed, the iron knocker thwacked downstairs, startling her awake. She heard Maddy curse and open the front door and, fighting off sleep just a moment longer, Sara unlatched the door in the floor and saw below, on the doorstep, a Yendil healer – strong hands of a man, under long black sleeves, but her face feminine and aglow in violet. Sara had never seen a Yendil before. The healer rushed inside, right by Maddy and stomped mud off her feet as Maddy tried to stop her, exclaiming “Me rug!”

The healer ignored her. “Oh, Master’s Volstagg got tangled up awful,” she said, out of breath, to Maddy. “An’ ‘ees been bitten by something I never seen! Though I’m new to this realm. Do ye know where the mystic lives? I don’t know what ointment to use.” She rang her hands together. “It’s the strangest sickness I ever seen, it’s pure evil it is – it’s like he’s arm’s been burned and turns black as night and is to come off! None of me herbs work!”

“What are you on about, Yendil?” Maddy said, dismissive. “Just wrap it in lemongrass and give him strong drink.”

“None of my herbs are working!” She shouted and then frantically looked up to Sara, who peered down at them from the hole in the attic. “Yous from the villages, the Otherland, I know it. I heards you were from there.”

“Oh, you don’t go getting my girl caught up in that business over in that place! She’ll be hangin’ next and,” Maddy crossed her arms, triumphantly “she don’t know a soul in Asgard, me besides.”

Sara hurried to her window, and opened up her mother’s music box – a small song of a thing, covered in knobbly blue stones. Inside, she pulled out a wooden ball, carved with directions to Old Man Marckus’ hut beyond the towns.

“Here,” Sara said as she climbed down the ladder and ignored the stunned look on Maddy’s face as she handed the ball over to the Yendil. “Here’s the way to Marckus, he’s a healer and a mystic –”

“Psha! He’s a magician, more like.” Maddy interjected, crossing her arms.

“I knew him from the seven villages, what’s left of them,” Sara ignored her. “He lives here now. He may know, he collects things. From all the realms – even Midgard. Go to him but be discreet.”

As the Yendil hurried off, Maddy stared at Sara as if she just spoke in a foreign tongue. “That’s more words I heard you put together in weeks!”

“I’ve been much distracted, Maddy. I know.”

“And since when do you have connections in the towns? Much less with Old Man Marckus?” Indeed, he was a favorite among the mortal refugees in Asgard – as he was quite proud of his Otherlander status, brimmed with strange stories and weird customs. Plus, he could turn gold into dirt. That impressed them all. He could not turn dirt into gold, however. Which did not impress them at all.

Sara shrugged at Maddy, helplessly and, seconds later, the door knocked again.

“Heavens! This place come alive at night, don’ it?” Maddy flung open the door and the Liason stood before them, with his expression blank as parchment.

“Master Loki’s been wounded. Your assistance is required.”

He vanished from the porch step. Sara and Maddy looked to the now-empty door, then to each other.

“Well, go on then, yermajesty.” Maddy fetched, then shoved a healing basket into Sara’s arms and she did all but keep herself from running to his towers.

 

Master Loki reclined in a long basin that had been cut into the floor and lined with gold and onyx, in which poured several streams of water, each a color of the prism, from the mouths of several masks along the wall. Their eyes and mouths stared ahead, eternally open, and disturbed Sara as she treaded softly across the chamber, seeing only the profile of her master’s angled face in the torchlit space. He didn’t seem to notice that she entered.

Three guards stood watch behind him and, like most royals, he ignored their presence. But the presence of guards in a private bath alarmed Sara.

Sara gripped her basket as she neared her master and noted his dark suit resting from a hook on the wall, like the hide of a newly skinned animal.

On the other end of the bath, looking down at him – pretty brazenly, as Sara could see – was a tall woman, a lady-in-waiting, judging by her gown. As she neared, Sara recognized her by her slightly goldish skin. She was the lady she saw weeping in the garden, on her first day in the kitchens.

Loki’s bare elbow rested on the edge of the bath, along the floor. He studied his forearm with a cocked head, as if a small insect was crawling up its pale branch and he could not disturb it or be disturbed in his study of it. Hunched over in the massive tub, his chest and neck bare of suit or armor, he looked strangely frail to her – like a boy, from the villages, lost in his thoughts.

Sara knelt on the ground, not raising her eyes, and placed the basket down and quietly removed three sponges and two bottles of elixir.

“Leave us,” Loki said.

Sara rose to leave, and caught a glimpse of Anastazia, the lady-in-waiting, smiling at her.

“Not you,” he ordered, and sullenly glanced up at Sara before returning his gaze to his forearm. Sara looked toward the three guards who retreated and then to Anastazia who’s soft smile vanished as she realized she was to leave. Her eyes hesitated.

“My lord, what am I tell the Queen?” She said, with the imperious air of his equal. Hearing her status in her voice, Sara felt the first stab of envy.

“You’ve delivered your message. You can tell her what you like. Let her know I am…” Loki paused for a second, and the water splashed as he shifted underneath it, “…Tell my…mother that I am,” he paused again and smiled amiably in Anastazia’s direction, “I am…very well recovered.”

“As you wish,” she said, looking at Sara once before looking down at Loki. “And…Lord Thor? What should I tell him?”

At this, Loki’s gaze removed itself from his forearm and he glared at her.

She bowed quickly and hurried out the opposite door.

Loki and Sara were alone now, save for the sound of the trickling mouths along the wall.

Sara kneeled back onto the floor and her skin prickled in pleasure when, after a few moments, she heard her Master’s smooth voice address her directly.

“Are you well?” He inquired, his eyebrows turned up in curiosity.

“Yes, Master,” she said, and promptly soaked a sponge in the water, far too tepid and coldish for her taste, yet small beads of prespiration lined his thin lips. She squeezed the sponge over the lean bruised mound of his shoulder and the water turned golden in the air.

“We are only cold from the winter. A lot of servants have taken sick from it. It’s a kind of cold we couldn’t prepare for.”

The side of his lip flicked upward in what might have been a smile.

“There is cold far worse than this kind that is coming and that no one can prepare for.”

He placed a finger under her chin and Sara hesitated to meet his gaze on her again.

“Look at me,” he said.

Sara looked back into blue eyes that trained themselves on her face, studying it as if looking for an answer in it. He had a boyish air about him now and seemed very different - a slight tremble in his hands, around his lips and his wide eyes, as though something down beneath whirred and rattled his confidence, the very solid bars of him.

“You’ve much changed,” he said.

Sara wanted to answer “as have you”, but she wouldn’t dare – it was far too intimate. Loki’s lips parted as though her intended answer just struck him as a thought. Did her eyes betray her? He lowered his arm down into the bath, and dropped his gaze from her.

“Do I look different in your eyes?” He said, slowly. “Do you think me a monster?”

“I could never think that, my lord,” Sara replied, tilting a bottle of elixir onto the sponge.

“All maidens find their victor’s monsters, once they’ve bedded them…” He dipped his long hand into the water and pulled it up, a puddle of gold in his palm. “Maidens and monsters, do they not always go together?”

He looked at her and the puddle poofed into a cluster of small green flames. She gasped, startled at his magic. He closed his long fingers over it and the flames went out.

“In some tales, my lord,” she replied.

He raised an eyebrow. “Not yours?”

Sara remained silent and Loki leaned forward for her to tend to his back – his long back. Save for a knick on his wide shoulder blades, his back was smooth as marble. She remembered an account from another servant how Thor’s back was often smattered with cuts and bruises that always healed before he got new ones in their place.

“Is something the matter?” He whispered, turning his head, alarmed and lizard-quick.

“You seem to be in good health, sir, that is all.” Sara stammered. “I heard one of the warriors was hurt on your outing. I worried your wounds would be severe, forgive me. I’m happy to see they are not.”

“Volstagg is a clot,” Loki replied, flicking his long fingers in dismissal. She rinsed his back and dabbed the gashes while Loki flurried out a list of light insults on all the company that were with him and she knew none of their names but was surprised he mentioned them, in her presence, at all. Loki grew more and more animated as he spoke, as if sorting his thoughts aloud to an empty room and to her all at once. She couldn’t make out details of his ramblings but from what she could understand – he had visited Jotunheim, with Lord Thor and the Warriors 3 and the famed Lady Sif, and a fight of some kind broke out. She did not know much about Asgard when she arrived but she knew that Jotunheim – a place barely mentioned among servants – was a realm even Odin did not enter. Her master’s regaling sounded treasonous and she was unsure if she should stop him, for her rank should know nothing of these things. She tried to erase his tale from her mind as he talked, forgetting it inside the silence from which she listened behind him, pouring water along his long dark strands of hair.

“As are the rest!” Loki wiped his forehead with a hand and splayed it out again. “The rest – brave but moronic, like my brother. They could have all been killed if it weren’t for me.”

Maddy’s words of warning about servants who knew too much swam around Sara’s mind and she thought of the quiet bodies, swinging slowly from their ropes just now in the nighttime outside.

He continued on, his elegant voice echoing around the room and he moved on to his brother, Lord Thor, and his “foolishness”.

“And – and –” Loki spoke rapidly now, leaning forward and moving his hands about as if arguing with an invisible foe, “he – he’s gone and got himself banished and we are more vulnerable than ever because of him. Damn fool!”

He thrashed back in the tub, spent.

Banished.

Sara checked the corners of the chambers with her eyes, to see if anyone was listening. Surely no one knew that Lord Thor was banished, at least not at this hour. Hoping if she faced him, he would remember she was there and stop these confessions so she was not at risk for being privy to any more inner workings of a dynasty that could throw a rope around her neck and end her and then go about their dinner, no questions asked. She moved back to kneel beside him, and picked up a new elixir – a strong kind that turned grown mortal men into shivering babies under it’s sting. She dabbed a rag and brought it toward the two thin cuts along his sharp cliff of cheekbone.

He waved his hand for her not to.

“It is nothing,” he said, and blinked a few times and avoided her gaze. “I’m not as fragile as my… father thinks.” 

A quiet pause entered between them and then, hoping to change the subject, Sara said “I had a foolish brother once.”

Loki looked at her and froze, startled – as much as he could be – as if she was a strange creature that just materialized in front of him and announced to him the day he would die.

It was impertinent for her to speak out of turn, she knew, but he was stilled enough not to protest as she brought the rag of strong elixir to his pale cheek.

“Had you?” He asked, and swallowed as Sara dabbed the rag into the cut. He didn’t wince. It did nothing to him. He stared at her, calculating. “And? And within your small power what would you have done with him?”

“I did nothing,” she smiled, remembering her brother – a strong, stupid lad in the villages who impregnated half the butcher’s daughters and died in a plague that wiped out half of the seven towns. He was spared the raids that followed and sent the survivors, like her, to seek a new kingdom. The plague never reached the heart of Asgard – save King Odin’s heart, which took pity on the few surviving villagers and let them come from the Otherland and serve in his kingdom. “I let him be a fool. And only loved him.”

Loki watched her as she dabbed over the red cuts, which vanished as they healed. “And would you have loved him if he was not your brother?”

“No,” Sara said, and smiled to herself, thinking of him. “He was a fool.” She dared to look up at Loki as she smiled and a delighted grin grew across his face and for a moment it felt as if they were in a conspiracy together.

He slapped his hands and laughed, a boyish laugh, then brought his hands apart and danced his eyes across the surface of the water, as if the brightest, most dazzling sights shimmied across it now. “It is so simple!” He laughed, exhaling, breathless. “So…so…simple. Why had I not thought of it?”

He brought his fingers together and leaned back, resting his head along the dark stones. He then gazed at Sara as though he had never quite seen her before.

“You,” Loki said, and she felt his long fingers slide around the flesh of her upper arm and he looked at her, enchanted. “…have the answers and yet you do not even try.”

“I – I,” Sara started, blushing, “I do not know what I have said to have delighted you, my lord, but your delight brings me happiness.”

“So it seems,” he smiled and pulled her into the basin with him. She couldn’t stop herself from laughing as he did, though she didn’t know if there would be violence or play in his next stroke. She wiggled to right herself but Loki closed his long bare legs around her so she couldn’t move and he chuckled in her ear.

“See,” he whispered, between his teeth “how easily I can catch.”

“My Lord! My dress!” She squealed out peels of laughter, as the waters around her skirt made her heavy. 

He made a face as if he was taken aback. “Your dress?”

He raised his hand and curled his fingers as if holding an imaginary ball. Smiling at her, he jerked his hand sideways and all cloth (…and cares and worries…) ripped off her body, leaving her naked.

Catching her breath, she watched her dress fly through the air and toward the floor and Loki watched her.

She was astride him now, somehow, from the wrestle. His hands rested casually on her thighs suspended under the water. Loki gazed down to her breasts, which rose in the cold, and he traveled one long hand up her side.

“To be bare, the wisest of snares,” he mused to himself, trailing his eyes and hand whimsically up and down the lines of her. She did not know what he meant and did not care to as he then stretched, cat-like and lazily, under her weightless body and his eyes danced from one side of her hips to the other, and he said, “your body needs to be taken again.”

Loki pulled her down onto him and she rested her hands along the smooth marble edge behind his head. He held her waist and lifted her slightly over him so that his lips were at the soft skin of her throat and her lips over the lines of his brows – the punctuation of every word he spoke.

“Sara,” Loki whispered into her neck “…if I were not a man, but something worse, would this body in my hands be my own?”

Her mind was already swimming again. His long torso rested between her thighs, his hands braced her waist, controlling where and if she moved. She couldn’t make out his riddles or whatever questions were underneath them. A strange question: who else did she want to give her body to? No one.

He pulled her down a bit so he could look up into her face and she paused, startled. His eyes no longer glinted green; they were not lustful, as they were just moments before, but were blue and wide and looked up at her for an answer she didn’t know she had in her, or that anyone in all of Asgard could have in them, for his eyes pleaded from a place so very, very far away from any distance she could cross, from some struggle that no one in all of the nine realms could answer.

She looked down into both of them, feeling as if she were not naked at all or in his powerful grip but rather that she could end his life at that moment if she chose.

The water dripped. He stared up at her. She could only say the first words that entered her mind.

“Whether you were a man or not, my lord, if you were worthy – yes.”

He said nothing. His thin lips pressed into a soft smirk and Loki’s eyes gazed beyond her for just a second until they flicked green again.

The water thrashed as he gripped her waist hard and jolted her in place. An electric current shot up through her body, from his magic, and his jaw clenched in a grimace as he watched her, struggling to stay upright, arching herself, gasps escaping her mouth.

“Until such time,” he growled and slid his long fingers down across her sex, under the water. “This is mine.”

Loki pressed himself inside her, seizing her rear and her thighs and her waist altogether in his large hands. He fought himself higher and higher up inside of her – holding onto her with a vice-grip and she could hardly breathe, save for short intakes of air, under the pleasure and pain of it.

He wouldn’t stop. He slammed her hips down on him and thrashed inside of her again and again until she collapsed, hours later, atop him, in ecstasy.

“This is mine.”


	4. Tales from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amid an uneasy kingdom, our servant finds her hard labor eased…and replaced with a harder kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline to Thor(film): Events in this chapter take place the morning after Thor’s expulsion from Asgard and the days that immediately follow.

The break-in of the Vault upset all the citizens of Asgard – high and low alike. The news of Thor’s banishment, however, unsettled them far worse.

The nobles, in particular, saw it as an ugly affair that spelled the end of their partying. Indeed, several days of planned festivals now lay fallow and un-enjoyed. Crimson banners draped the balconies to celebrate his coronation. They now flapped idly in the breeze. The golden prince was nowhere to be seen. His boisterous laugh and rowdy taunts no longer rang in the courtyards.

Roads that would’ve burst with music and revels for seven days straight teemed, instead, with sentinels who patrolled them day and night. The doubling of their presence annoyed the Asgardians but rattled the nerves of the commoners who felt it was a bad omen, a sign that things were worse than they were being led to believe.

Security around the Vault tripled. Word had it that even the royal family themselves were forbidden to enter it, save the King.

The hall of Odin stood empty.

The morning just after Thor’s banishment, when it was still just a rumor waking up with a yawn and shuffling its way from one servant’s mouth to another, Sara had left Loki’s chambers with aching legs, a racing heart and her throat dry from panting.

Behind her, she heard Loki’s door creak open. She felt his eyes on her as she started down the stair.

“Come here.”

Sara returned to his doorway and dipped her head before him.

The sweat from his exertions with her, just moments ago, still clung to his pale cheeks. They glistened. Loki studied the floor, cupping his fist with one hand.

“You do know that my-, that Lord Thor’s been cast out of Asgard, never to return.”

Sara made no reply.

His fingers unfolded elegantly in his grip.

“I told you of it.”

“Y-yes, yes, of course, my lord,” Sara said. She had completely forgotten. After the bath, he had taken her into his chambers and obliterated all other thoughts from her mind.

“Does it distress you?”

“Not at all, my lord.”

“When there’s an upset in dominion, your kind tend to….waver.”

“My kind, sir?” Servants do what we’re bidden to do and serve who we’re bidden to serve, she thought.

Loki smiled.

“I trust you will keep this knowledge secret.”

Loki ran his thumb across her lips. Sara fought to not close her eyes under his touch. “All lips are prone to treachery. You have a pretty little mouth,” Loki mused. “Will you keep it closed? Or will I have to fill it again?”

“You may be assured of my secrecy, my lord.” She said.

“Very well.” Loki released her chin and glided his hands over her wrists. “You are now free to do your work and roam all grounds. You will tell the Liason he’s to lighten your labors in half, so that I may enjoy the other whenever I wish.”

Loki tightened his fingers on her wrists. In a quick pulse, her wrists began to glow. Energy snaked up her forearms in vines of ice-colored light. Sara gaped at the spectacle as the light morphed into each other and formed sleeves upon her forearms. They hardened into pure silver before her eyes.

She gasped at the sight of them and, unsure as to whether she should be terrified or thankful for their sudden appearance, she looked at Loki. She detected warmth in one eye, calculation in the other.

He dismissed her.

Indeed, the days of Thor’s banishment were a breeze to work. Thor’s servants kept his kitchens fired up, optimistic for his return, and grateful for their newfound free hours. Those free hours were shortlived, however. The Liason gave them the irksome news that they’d be handling a slew of new duties to fill those open hours. Only a few of Thor’s servants suspected that “the silent one” was to blame for this. And only under their breath did they curse her for it.

On her first break of free time, Sara visited Old Man Markus. She had to find his hut by memory for she had given the path-ball to Master Volstagg’s yendil the night before. Without it, the yendil would have lost her way before clearing the towns – for the cliff dwellings that lay beyond were reachable only by foot and byzantine paths. Fumbling with her memory, Sara made the trek across high and winding paths over rivers and around bends cut into the stony cliffs.

She found Markus sitting outside his hut, legs-crossed, smoking a pipe. His white beard shined in the sun. He was too old to serve but he was lithe for his silver years. Seeing her, Marckus called out.

“Hallo, young Sara! What brings you by at this high hour? Do you have another yendil come, hot on your trail, to pester me for cures I know not of?”

In reply, Sara raised her hand in greeting. The new silver armbands caught the sunlight, shot it across her eyes and blinded her. She stumbled off the last stone step.

“Careful there,” Markus said. “If you fall to your death, who will come and bring me news?”

“No news. I bring you flowers instead.” Sara handed him a bunch of wild poppies. Markus sniffed them, frowned and chucked them over the cliff edge.

“You are most welcome.” Sara said, smiling.

“I thank you, my dear, but those are days-rotten and of no use to me. And days have been rotten and I of no use to those.”

Markus fixed two cups of rooted tea, which Sara was not fond of but drank for his courtesy.

She sat next to him and cast her eyes around his newest sundries – a pot simmering with violet bubbles, a Midgardian clock overgrown with vines (an experiment gone wrong, surely) and a small doll of wax on a stool.

“Do the days rot?” She teased.

“Not as fast as those poor souls on the gallows…” Markus snorted and shook his head, in pity. On her way there, Sara had seen them, too. Still hanging. It’s a fate worse than beheading. To linger as examples.

“News travels quickly, I see,” Sara said.

“The Arm of Justice travels quicker.” Markus slurped the mug. “Tell me, does Odin let that bigot just run wild?”

“I know not of what the good king does. The Arm declared them guilty.”

“Speedy work, indeed.”

“He declared, before all, that they confessed to conspiracy.”

“Of course they did. And I am Goddess Elli, re-incarnated.”

“I do not know ‘re-incar—”

Markus flicked his pipe, impatiently. “They no more confessed to conspiracy than they confessed to their own names. They were mountain-born Otherlanders, Sara. Mutes. They could not understand his words, or speak their own, any more than they could muster magic that could guide Jotuns past the All-Seer.”

She frowned. What a dreadful ending. To not speak was survival. For them, it was death.

“Nice bonds.” Markus squinted down his nose at her arms. “Fine bonds! This is no work of a mage-smith.”

“No, indeed. They were made by my master.”

He peered at them, fascinated, careful not to touch them but to let his eyes study each bend and groove.

“To change one element to another is grand,” Markus marvelled, “…but to create one from nothing – that is magic. Divine magic.” The delight left his face and a glint of rebellion kindled in its place. “And ‘tis the mark of Asgardian servitude.”

“A mark I receive in gratitude, praise Odin.” Sara smiled, ready to diffuse his sacrilege before it ignited. “You’d do well to remember his mercy to you, as well.”

“Psha! Mercy. Holed up over this thundering tide! With crows pecking at my feet while I sleep.”

“You did insult the court on your first day here.”

“I did them a just favor.”

“You declared you entered a dying kingdom, doomed to end.”

“Perhaps that was ill-timed.” Markus scratched his beard.

“You should come to the sunset feasts more often. They’d revive your spirits.”

“I’m too old for all that pageantry. I’d like to go home.”

“There’s nothing left of our home.” Sara said, quiet. “This is all that’s left. ”

Marckus looked at Sara and opened his mouth to speak but only a smile came out.

“Worry you not, little Sara. The world is surprisingly wide.”

Her lightened work load was a nice luxury. But it came at a cost.

If Thor’s “appetites” were known as enormous, Loki’s were downright voracious. He found her in every spare minute she had alone in her tasks. There wasn’t an empty corridor where Sara could walk that Loki didn’t step into, from seemingly nowhere, and take her. Even in broad daylight. Hanging wash in the noon sun, Sara saw his silhouette slide across the fluttering linens until it vanished and he appeared behind her, gripping her into him and taking her upon the blades of grass.

In the market she’d turn a corner, basket in her arms, and the contents spilled to the ground when Loki seized her from public view and took her to dark, quiet places; against the fountainhead in a worship square, long abandoned; in the doorstep of a sleeping merchant’s home; in the rain-sotted hollow of an old gatehouse.

Sara altered her paths so they were nowhere in sight of Loki’s high, all-seeing windows. It was no use. Her evasions just amused him and spurred him on. He’d emerge from thin air, laughing, as he led her to a new spot – any spot – to take her until he had his fill.

As each day passed, a smile took shape on Sara’s lips, fixed itself there and would not leave. Her body wrecked, the smile stayed. Random times she’d catch herself wishing that other servants could be called to sate her master. But still…the smile stayed

In the mornings, standing in just a shift by her bed, she felt Loki’s eyes on her but from where she did not know. She suspected the reflection in her mirror, where she felt his presence the strongest.

In the evenings, while she fell asleep, she’d open her eyes to Loki in the shadow of the corner of her tiny room watching her.

“My lord,” she whispered, half-asleep into her pillow. “I feel you watching me. And I can see you now. You are not hidden from me.” 

In the night’s quiet and dark, Loki smiled at her. She saw only his pallid face and eyes as he stood over her bed. The leather of his suit creaked as he approached her bed and hovered over it – a giant in the small cave of her chamber.

He unfolded three of his fingers and traced a line in the air. The blanket slid off her slowly. She lay there, curled up and too tired to move as the strap of her shift moved off her shoulder, exposing her breast for his view.

“Touch yourself,” he demanded in a low voice.

She kept her eyes fixed on his and her body still as she moved her hand down to her breast and stroked it, looking at him.

“Now lower.” 

She watched him as she slid her hand down to her sex and rested it there. He looked back to her eyes.

“Make yourself come.”

“Yes, my lord.” Sara said, remembering not take her eyes off his as it made him very angry when she did. She did not know how to do this, but she had seen farmgirls do it so she rotated her own fingers across her sex till it began to feel good and she rocked slightly as she did. Loki’s eyes fixed on hers – occasionally darting to her busy hand.

As she felt herself come closer to her own threshold, Loki’s eyes turned panther bold and he spoke low and quick, as her breathing came heavier and short.

“Who commands you.”

“You, my Lord.” Sara said, breathlessly.

“Who do you obey?”

“You….my Lord…”

**

Dread coiled inside her – a snake split into halves, wrapping around her mind.

Loki’s constant attention reached inside her body and wouldn’t quite leave it - his presence felt even when she was alone. She could not satisfy him if he kept on this way. She wasn’t built for the intensity of him. If she’d been an Asgardian, or a goddess, or even blessed with powers, perhaps she could bear it. But as a mere mortal, succumbing to his appetite felt like six fleets of ships crashing on the shore of her soft, simple body and soft, simple world.

Her body found a reprieve, finally. On the holy day. By Odin’s custom, all foreign subjects could fast and ritual to their native gods and to their heart’s content so long as they came before him and the Queen at nightfall to take their blessings of good health. No refugee dared not attend – and most much preferred it. Sara knew it’d be the only time she’d be in the presence of her master and he would have to control himself. Before the King and Queen, Loki would behave.

That morning, she’d risen and took the high stair to the Otherlanders temple – an altar on a narrow crag of rock that jutted high from the thundering rivers. A curve of stone protected the shrine within from the high, howling winds that streamed in from the West. Only a few Otherlanders came to kneel before the wood statue of the harvest goddess which stood nicked and defiled by the chaos of their pilgrimage to Asgard.

In silence, they exchanged gifts – an old tradition.

Sara spotted Markus at the front. He wore a dark cap on his white head which sank on his shoulders, deep in thought. Taking a spot ahead of him, she sat on her knees to pray, wincing in pain as she did so. Markus coughed behind her.

Then coughed, again.

“Are you unwell?” Sara whispered back over her shoulder.

“Nothing but ill portents.” Markus said, leaning forward. “I feel it in my blood. I saw an eagle fall from the sky. My potions froze in the night though it be as warm as summer. A storm is coming, Sara.”

She caught the scandalized glances of the Otherlanders kneeling beside them. Speaking before the goddess was sacriledge. Sara didn’t mind. She was under the heel of a god already.

“Markus, you’ll make yourself uneasy.” Sara said

“Shhh!” A harsh voice chastised from behind them. “This is our quiet day of reflection.”

“Then stay quiet, young man!” Markus hissed back at him. “Or do you need Odin’s permission for that as well?”

“For heavens sake, lower your voice, Markus.” Sara said. This was no time to be flippant about the king.

“You do not speak out of turn, Sara. For this, you will always be safe. And it dears my heart to know it.” He leaned back and finished his prayers. Sara was relieved at his silence.

Sara gave him a gift – a small loaf of rosebread – and whispered the first part of their traditional blessing. “May the sun stay on your face.”

Markus reached into the pockets of his robe and they clattered with objects. He pulled out a tin box with a tiny key in a lock. He handed it to her and added the second part of the blessing. “And the wheat as high as morning.”

Then he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a small wax doll. He held out his wrinkled hand.

“If ever mortal danger finds me, melt this.” He muttered. “I commend my old soul to your safekeeping. Here.”

He was cooped up in isolation too long and it made him paranoid. Amused, Sara took it from him and told him “Dear Markus – get some rest.”

Held up high by brass pillars, the canopy shuddered under the cool winds that gathered from the sea and blew across the massive stone courtyard. On the underside of the canopy, a tapestry depicted horses charging into battle, woven in elegant brass threads and Sara marveled at it. On one end of the long quad, two gold doors led to the palace. On the other end stood a dais with three gilded chairs that reflected the firelight of urns, blazing against the winds. Loki sat in one. The Queen in the other. The middle sat empty.

The refugees knelt and bowed their heads when two guards opened the doors and Odin entered. Loki stared hard at Odin.

She may have only been in Asgard a short time, but Sara had never seen his whole majesty dimmed as it was now. She could sense frailty in his dragging steps as he made his way up the line of bowed heads, his lips barely moving as he blessed each of them. It was as though a light had turned off inside of the good king and Queen Frigga’s smile alone held the task of powering it for him.

On her arms, the silver braces began to tingle. Sara twitched as they grew hotter. Keeping her head bowed, she peeked at Loki. He glanced down at her.

After he mumbled his last blessing, Odin moved slowly up the dais and sank onto the center seat. He raised his hand, tiredly and Queen Frigga stood up and called for them all to rise. As they did, a troupe of musicians, fire-breathers and jesters exploded through the doors. Reflexively, the Queen shot a look to Loki, who smiled at her with closed lips and shrugged at the ruckus. The rising subjects looked to each other, confused as to whether they should break out into dance or not. It was unusual to party on a holy day.

Laughing, Queen Frigga raised her glimmering arm and announced a feast to start at that very moment. Around them, vendors and townsfolk poured in from around the pillars, carrying tables, chairs, and plates piled high with food.

At the sight of the food, the servants erupted into merriment and began to organize into groups and dances for reels. Most went straight for the wine. Maddy was the first in line for it. As everyone dispersed, Sara found herself standing alone by the pillar and caught Loki watching her, his hand resting on the back of the Queen’s chair. She hurried across the court to Maddy who held her goblet out for filling.

“Careful not to drink too much.” Sara said, giving the eye to the wine-pourer to stop. Maddy was giving him no such signal. “Days have been easy of late, but not that easy. You’ll leave me with half your work if you are ill in the morning!”

“Oh, don’t lecture me, girl!” Maddy shooed her away with her pudgy hands. “’Tis free wine!” She downed half the goblet, before Sara could protest. “The Queen throws a feast in our honor, I says let’s make the most of it, ay?”

“In our honor? More like tryin’ to make all look well, if you asks me,” Hàkon, the butcher’s son, said through the side of his mouth, leaning into them.

“Well no one’s asking you, boy!” Maddy laughed.

Sara pretended to survey the crowd and caught Loki staring in her direction. At the sight of her, his chin rose and his eyes narrowed.

With a flip of his hair, Hàkon knudged Sara.

“An’ since you ‘aven’t asked me, how bout a dance?”

“Do not talk to me, sir,” Sara said, in a hurried whisper, not glancing at him, but hurrying the winemaster to pour quickly. She was aware of Loki’s eyes on her from the dais.

“Why, we high and mighty now!”

“Please do not talk to me. For your sake.” Sara was careful not to look at Hàkon as she yanked her goblet from the stream of wine and turned from him.

Hàkon scoffed, “Well!”, as she turned away.

It was too late. She heard her master’s voice speak and turned around to find him standing before the bowing servants, his arms behind his back and his expression like stone.

“Who is this…,” his eyes traveled down Hàkon’s garb, “….man?”

They looked to each other like dazed goats, unsure how to answer or to who he even addressed the question. Only Thor spoke to those of their station. Loki seemed to never see them at all.

Sara opened her mouth to speak but Hàkon jumped at Loki’s direct address and his newfound importance.

“M-m-lord, I am Hàkon, the butcher.” Being but his son, the boy promoted himself to butcher. Sara stole a quick look at Maddy who pursed her lips at her, disapproving.

“Hàkon…the butcher?” Loki’s looked confused for a moment. Then his expression went blank. Then he smiled. He placed his fingers around the butcher’s throat and squeezed slightly. “You have a very strong neck, Hàkon.” Loki said, raising an eyebrow and observing him like a specimen. “It’s perfect for lumbering and the hard labor of your kind.” 

Hàkon’s eyes searched around frantically as less and less air came to his throat.

“Lord Thor would be proud to have a man like you in his service….if only he were here to request it.” Loki said.

The butcher’s face reddened as he tried to choke out a reply. He dug into Loki’s stone grip to ply it off his throat. It was only at this point that the servants realized the man was suffocating.

Loki laughed in delight. His eyes danced.

“Loki!” Queen Frigga called out. She glided through the crowd which parted like waves for her.

Loki shot his eyes toward the sound of her voice then looked back to the butcher. He released his grip. The butcher stumbled back and gasped for air.

Sara, Maddy, and the onlookers dropped to their knees as the Queen reached them.

“Loki, you are not up to games today, I hope.” With a regal smile, she swept her gaze across all of them. “They have worked hard enough.”

Loki cast eyes at her, blue and innocent.

“No games, Mother.” Loki said. “Look at this fine man! Hàkon, is it? He would make an exceptional guard, wouldn’t he?”

“Let’s away, Loki.” With a knowing look, Frigga put her arm through his. Loki patted the butcher on the shoulder so hard that he dropped to the ground.

When the Queen turned her back, Sara and the others rose. Over his shoulder, Loki smiled at her. Sara stood, dumbfounded.

Maddy’s voice was in her ear. “Whatever you have done, girl, undo it.”

She had to think fast. She could not dance or talk with others for it may trigger that whole spectacle with Loki again. Someone may truly get hurt next time. But she could not seclude herself from the present company, for Loki would surely spring upon her if she were alone. She must stay within the sight of King Odin’s good eye – which looked beyond the crowd and toward the sea where the spire of the bifrost pointed to the heavens.

A throng gathered round the feast table on the other end of the court, near the large doors and furthest from the dais. To buy herself time to gather her thoughts, Sara hurried to it and crammed herself into line with the others. She was but half way up the line when Loki idled up beside her and browsed the array of fruits and delicacies, as if it all appetized him. She didn’t buy his act for a moment. While he gazed at their selections, the vendors bowed their heads to him and proudly thanked him for the honor of looking at their goods. He returned their comments with a closed-mouth smile only. Or a nod of his head.

He neither looked at Sara or acknowledged her, but kept with arm’s reach of her at all times. She gazed at the strange fruits – some with thorns, some succulent with dazzling colors – but his presence distracted her. She didn’t dare look at him, or smile at him, or even address him as he trailed behind her, always in her periphery.

When the line backed up, Sara stopped and so did Loki. The rough edge of his leather-metal sleeve grazed the fabric of her dress as he pointed to a plate bursting with glistening, scarlet berries.

“What is this?” Loki asked the master greener, who twitched to attention at Loki’s question.

“That, my lord, is a rare, excellent fruit imported from the glens of Midgard,” he said, proud.

Loki feigned astonishment. “Midgard?” He raised his eyebrows, turning to Sara as if she were a stranger to be taken in by this rare, amazing fruit. He was jesting, of course but the greenmaster beamed with pride.

“And, tell me, Master Green, what is its name?”

“If my memory still serves, praise Odin, I believe they are called straw-berry.”

“Strawberry,” Loki smiled at Sara, who cast her eyes down. “Are they dry or wet fruits?”

“Would you care for a taste, my lord?”

Loki’s green eyes glinted down at Sara, pointedly. “Yes, I would.”

The master fished through the bunches as though his life depended on finding the very best. Still leering at Sara, Loki said to him “Take care to find me the wettest.”

“Absolutely, my lord,” the master hurried and produced a bunch of glistening strawberries on a vine. Still smiling at her, Loki plucked one off the branch and sank his teeth into it. The master-greener stared at him as though his entire life hung in the balance of his answer. Loki’s face went serious and grim as the taste registered.

“That,” Loki said. “That is possibly the finest fruit I ever tasted.” 

The master greener melted in pride.

Commotion erupted in the center of the court and the crowd cleared room for the revelers to perform, pulsing everyone back against the pillars and edges. People fought to get a view of the legendary dance and the ruckus pushed Sara back between the far edge of the crowd and a pillar. Exactly where she did not want to be.

Loki quickly darted behind her.

If anyone had been watching, they would’ve thought it mere coincidence Lord Loki was standing behind her, observing the court with a bemused look in his eyes. But no one was watching as all in the court fixed their gazed on the dance in the center. It was called the dance of the wild hunt, and the refugees had never seen it’s carnal spectacle of chase, prey and victory. They could not notice that Loki stood so close behind Sara that she could feel the metal trimming of his suit on the small of her back.

Loki twisted the ends of her hair between his fingers. She held tight to her plate and closed her eyes, her senses racing. He tugged at them and her head fell back slightly.

“I want this in my fingers.” Loki tilted his head down so she could hear his whisper though his lips moved imperceptibly. “I want it wrapped around my hands. I want you to swallow me.”

“Oh, my lord,” Sara sighed and her head fell back on his chest. He slid his long fingers around her neck and whispered quickly into her ear. “Meet me on the stairs.”

He walked around her, letting his hand graze down her back as he did so. He vanished. The crowd swayed, fire danced in the air – flames of spears darting through the hearts of racing deer. The music grew haunting. Sara sighed and rested against the pillar. It was cold on her hot cheeks. Her body still sore, her senses on high alert, she closed her eyes at the warm tightening between her legs at the thought of his hands on her once again. She had tried to think of a way to avoid Loki, just for a moment and here she was, heated for him still. She had tried to find a quiet space to clear her thoughts and yet here she was – pushing herself off the pillar and going to him again, caught in his snare.

As she neared the massive doors, she smelled lavender. A woman’s voice spoke in her ear as it rounded to the front of her.

“Who knew that whores can serve so openly?”

Anaztasia cut in front of her and Sara stopped. Beautiful, with a hint of violet in her features, Sara recognized her from Loki’s bath chambers, and from that night she saw her in the garden. Since the lady was Asgardian, Sara gave her a quick curtsey and stayed silent.

Taking her silence as offense, Anaztasia giggled and glided her hand down Sara’s arm with the delicate intimacy of long-time friends.

“It was kindly meant, girl.” Anaztasia said. When her fingers reached her silver bonds, Sara moved away from her touch. Asgardians did not touch servants when they greeted them. “You are not the first, nor the last, so come and go to his chamber, as you will, but it’ll be better for you if you stick to your kind.”

There was no doubt of what, and of whom she was speaking.

Come and go, as I will, Sara thought, as if I had much choice! Even if I had a choice, I would go to him!

“Of what you speak, I do not know.” Sara replied, not meeting her gaze. She ducked as a stream of fireballs soared and danced over their heads.

“Don’t play dumb village cow with me.” Anaztasia sneered. “You know of what I speak. You will end in a bad place, like so many of the others…” She looked sadly at the ground. “And they were not even mortal like you. How would you possibly fare? Who knows?”

Though her meaning baffled her, Sara kept her eyes fixed to the ground. She bowed her head. “If you please, m’lady. Farewell.”

Sara whisked away from her and toward the doors, daring not to look back though her heart pounded at the value of her words – if they were idle threats, or real ones. Everyone and everything seemed to pulse with danger.

Inside the grand foyer, quiet but for a passing noble here and there, Sara ambled past high windows that flickered blue and violet from lightning in the East. Their streaks froze in the sky.

She parted a thick curtain that led into a grand hall, at the end of which even grander stairs led up to unseen heights – places only the royals went. At the base of them, she spotted the flash of green from Loki’s cape. He was waiting. To take her up the stairs, surely. To some private chamber. She’d had a whole day of rest from his lusts but she wanted just a minute longer yet. She didn’t rush to him but rather stopped before a window, looking down onto the main courtyard. It was daring to not hurry to him but the turbulence of her thoughts caught up to her, fatigued her and she did not care. Sara gazed out at the golden peaks and domes of the city where red flags lined with gold beat against the winds, and she felt her mind de-tangle at the storm thrashing it’s way outside.

His voice, low as a rumble in the earth, swam in her ears as he crossed his arms around her waist, the leather squeaking slightly. He spoke into her neck.

“What troubles you?” he whispered and kissed the back of her jaw.

Sara trailed her fingers up the hard plate on his forearm and watched a giant bird take flight from the peak of a spire.

“Me, my lord. I feel my thoughts are not my own and…that I am in danger.”

“You are in danger,” Loki whispered even lighter. He grazed his lips to her temple and rested them there as he looked out the window. For a moment it seemed her thoughts were somewhere near his.

“If you permit me to speak freely, my lord…”

In reply, Loki tightened his grip around her waist before saying, “Yes.”

“I’m not immortal as you are master.”

“No.”

“And my own people act strangely around me. I do not know how I can serve you and do my labors at once.”

“Your work is with me now.” Loki said. He slid his finger back and forth across the crescent of her skin, above her corset, calculating. “Your thoughts are clean and simple, unsullied by the wiles and dogmas of this world, why do you say they could not be your own? Do they belong to another?”

Though his voice was quiet, there was warning in it. He stroked the round of her bosom with his finger while staying silent, waiting for her to answer. He had turned her words around to mean something perilous that she did not mean.

“Forgive me, my lord,” Sara said. “Perhaps I’ve been overworked…the last few days.”

At this, Loki laughed softly. “I have kept you occupied…”

Sara noticed the commotion of the undertakers outside and far below in the main court. Their capes billowed in the wind as they worked at cutting the ropes from the gallows. Each corpse landed, in a sickening heap, at their feet. Sara gulped in horror.

“Those poor souls.” She whispered. Loki’s lips left her temple as he examined the scene below.

“Yes. I do not envy their task.”

Her heart pitied the dead, not the undertakers. She dared not correct him. He brought his forehead closer to the window and peered harder at the scene. His jaw grazed her forehead as he spoke.

“What fools…to confess to a petty prank they could not even aspire to achieve.”

“A prank, my lord?” Sara watched the undertakers bundle the corpses in sacks.

“Well, yes.” She could feel him smiling, though she did not look at him.

“I let the giants in.” He boasted. 

Shocked, Sara looked up toward him. He barely could keep the smile from his lips as he surveyed the grim work below. “Pity they took the credit.”

And paid the price, Sara thought in apprehension.

Loki gripped the top of her skirt and bunched it between his fingers. As he spoke he slowly kneaded the fabric up, inch by inch, into his fists – exposing first her calves…then the backs of her knees…then the backs of her thighs.

“Your people act strange because your people are strange.”

He slid his palm up the inside of her thigh.

“They are weak.” He pushed two fingers inside her. Sara gasped. “They are violent.” Her head went heavy as he pulsed his fingers between her legs, in rhythm. “They have no authority of their own.”

The noise from the feast outside swelled in volume as doors opened in the corridor, on the other side of the curtain. Sara shot her head up and looked in the direction of the voices as they trickled closer toward them. Loki’s fingers moved in and out of her. She tried to catch her own noises in her throat as the laughter drew nearer. Loki didn’t stop or pay any heed to their new guests.

“My lor—my lo,” she whispered, trying to fight for words. “There are…we can be seen…”

“I don’t care.” He growled and dug his thumb into the soft cup of her bottom as he slithered his fingers in and out of her.

Her senses swam in ecstasy as the voices drew closer to them and hovered by the window just near the dividing curtain.

“Let’s go no further.” Loki said, quietly to himself.

From the other side of the curtain, a female voice cried out. “Let’s go no further!”

To mask her heavy breaths, Sara panted in her master’s neck as he spoke again.

“Let’s stand here and do nothing.” Loki muttered and a male voice echoed his exact words. Northern and farther north of her trembling thighs, Sara’s mind roiled in full heat and only a small corner of it, the sane part un-touched by lust, staggered at the power her master just revealed against the unsuspecting pair.

Loki slid his tongue up the back of her neck and he breathed a devil’s laugh when Sara bit her lip and whimpered as her hips writhed against his long fingers.

She could not think straight, yet she heard the duet of voices go quiet and ask each other, “Did you hear that?”

Loki retreated his fingers, parted her thighs and said in her ear. “I will make you come so hard you will feel all nine realms spinning.”

A groan escaped Sara’s lips as Loki slid inside of her, and breathed Shhhhhh into her neck.

“Not a sound,” he whispered.

Loki held her skirt above her hips and began to thrust hard into her. Sara shut her mouth tight to block the moans that fought wildly to leave her lungs. Only Loki’s breathing was free to ring aloud in the barren foyer and their audience of two by the curtain. She let her head rest against the windowpane as her master drove in and out of her, his force different this time. At moments she felt close, he tapered off before railing back into her, against her thighs, hard and relentless. As she felt herself near climax, he did the same again. And again. Her lips parted and froze open as she withstood his wild pounding in obedient, soundless pleasure.

Loki pulled her hair back and leaned over her shoulder as he fucked her and said, richly, into her ear….

“Yes, my little creature.”

Robbed of sound, eyes shut tight, tears streamed down her cheeks as she was about to come. Loki closed her mouth with his hand. Her climax thundered up and over her. Unable to defy him and scream, she grabbed the curtains. In desperation she gripped them as she soared through every ecstasy to the highest peak. Colors flashed across her vision. The skies opened before her and they were cold and light and she could not remember her own name. She heard her own voice tell her she was dead. She saw galaxies rip apart. She saw fields of tall, high grasses swaying in the sun. Dark, flat deserts sleeping under the stars. Frozen rivers in the ribs of dead mountains.

He growled in her ear, “Yes…Sara, yes.”

Without the freedom to cry out, all strength and muscle fled her limbs and she went limp as a rag doll in Loki’s hands while he held her steady and expelled himself into her.

Having finished, he dropped her skirt from his hands and it tumbled down like a curtain. He let go of her for a moment to adjust his suit and she collapsed to the ground. Loki knelt behind her and pulled her limp body backward into his arms. Her head swam – half in sleep, half in other worlds. Her lids heavy she watched lightning flash across the window above. She had no voice to speak as her mind crawled across other lands, her master’s voice distant.

“You see there, Sara…” Loki said, cradling her. “You see…you cannot outrun me. You are mine.”

Loki closed his eyes, pressed his hand on her chest and energy radiated into her ribs and her heart. His breathing in her ears rang crisp and clear now, and the colors in her view snapped back into focus. She could feel motion in her toes, blood in her fingers.

He lifted her up. Her legs damp and trembling, Sara smoothed down the front of her dress. Loki pressed her up against the window and slid his hand around her waist, laying it on her stomach while he spoke into her neck.

“You will not clean me off your thigh.” He said “You may now dance with your butcher boys. I will watch you do so with pleasure.”

Catching her breath, she gripped the ledge. Rain streamed down the window – ticking against it like a clock. She nodded to him Yes. Loki cupped her shoulders in his hands and kissed the back of her neck, just above the hem of her blouse, still smooth and unhassled. “Enjoy your dancing.”

In a pulse of air, he vanished.

Trembling, Sara stayed just so for a few moments. She felt his damp along her upper thigh. In a reflex she went to dab it with her skirt, but stopped her hands. Sara parted the curtain and, in a daze, didn’t notice she walked past her audience of two. They stared out the window, still as statues.

It was swirling in drunken revelry now. Merry laughs and cheers clanged wildly around her as Sara dozed through the center of the throng, seeing nobody, feeling nothing. She tried to lift a jug to pour herself water but her hands were still weak. Taking pity on her, the attendant poured the cup for her. With legs damp and shaky, she stood in a daze, sipping water, quiet in her thoughts which scattered around like little leaves in her mind.

A few nobles, bedecked in tan robes and gold, gathered on the steps of the dais looking on at the amusement, chatting to eachother and Loki. Odin and Frigga had retired to their chambers. The three gilded chairs sat empty now, save one. Loki reclined in the middle chair.

“…The safest realm in all creation, don’t you agree?”

A young man had been speaking to her.

She hadn’t noticed until he reached out a hand and asked for a dance. He was an ore-digger from the shores – a mortal, a tall boy with a head of yellow curls, who didn’t seem to mind her lack of responses as he prattled on, laughing, while leading her to the dancing. They moved through the swirling bodies, and Sara adjusted to his strength which felt easy and nimble like her own. Next to Loki, this lad – though strong – felt breakable. He spoke of weather, and music, and other trivial things that required only smiles, nods and laughs in reply. Which Sara could give. It’s all she could give.

As they spun around, Sara stole a look at Loki. He was deep in conversation with two nobles. While he spoke to them, his eyes slid to her and he grinned.

As the song ended, Sara curtseyed to the boy, thanked him and excused herself. She spied Maddy passed out at the base of a pillar – her neck sunk to her chest. As Sara helped her to her feet, Maddy muttered incoherently, like she usually did when she was over-wined. She rambled nonsense about holes in the sky and worms that crawled through stars. Sara soothed her as she guided her through the crowd and out the doors.

Sara collapsed onto her bed. No strength to even pull a blanket over her for warmth. As her eyes dazed to sleep, the ceiling turned to starry skies over Asgard. She followed a sea of tiny lights that swirled in clusters overhead – drawing together into a galaxy full of milky stardust, never shrinking, ever spinning, forever. She could not feel her body. She could not see his face or his eyes, but she could feel Loki’s presence – it lingered over her lids, it rustled down the veins all throughout her body. She could not wake from her dreams anymore, she was in them entirely.

The west-sinking sun bathed her room in blazing orange light. Sara opened her eyes and squinted in it. She yawned, feeling sated and whole in a way she’d never known before. The light around her was a womb and she stretched her limbs, happy to doze in it. She’d never seen her room lit up like this.

She then realized why that was.

She’d never been in it at this time of day.

She shot up from her cot and exclaimed.

“Gods!”

She looked around the room, frantic as the horror hit that she’d slept through an entire day. Her eyes always opened before dawn – a muscle memory of all in servitude.

As she threw on her robe she could not imagine what horrors lay before her – of rooms uncleaned, firewood ungathered, star candles wilted to their wicks in the towers. …on and on…..

She shuffled quickly down the hatch ladder and found Maddy in the kitchen. She gave her a haughty look and then chuckled.

“Well, morning there, princess! Aren’t you the lucky one?”

“I….” Sara took a deep breath, “am….so….sorry, Maddy. I do not know how I can ….possibly…..the washing, the meals…”

“All taken care of, your ladyship.” Maddy smacked her hands. “Not by me, mind.”

“Stop calling me that, Maddy, please – I just overslept. I suppose…I’m not well, I didn’t mean – ”

“Din’t mean to what? Sleep in? Decide to take a day off did you?” Maddy opened the oven door and shoved in two plates of ham. “If that’s what you call it. I wakes up as I usually do, my head throbbin’ like thunder and I sees the linens hanging on the lines still, masters’ ovens as cold as graves – and I come back here, to see what hell you’ve dragged me into today, ‘avin to tend to it all by meself, and lo! Guess who stops me on me way ‘cross the gardens? Liason? No….master himself! As cool as spring cucumbers he holds a hand out to me – like so,” she raised her hand and chin elegantly, “ ‘Do not disturb her today’. More words than he’s ever spoke to me in me life, mind. ’Course I bows to him and says, ‘No master, I’ll tend to it’ and go’s to walk away, cursed as thunder as I was good as a grave much I drank and you know what Master does? He tells me to go place my feet by the fire and that a Yendil will be there waiting to tend to me! Me! I says ‘Master Loki, I’m right as rain. I be mortal kind but we do our jobs fit. I’ll manage’ but he hears none of it and orders me to come tend to you after I feel better!”

Maddy spun around to Sara.

“Can you believe that, girl? I thought I still had drink in me head! I was hearin’ an’ seeing things! Lord Loki standing in the garden, like some grand, common butler, tellin’ me to have a day off! ‘Ees a splendid lad – as good as spring – I always said it. Always said it….”

Maddy huffed past her and then swatted Sara on her rear.

“Whatever you’ve done girl, keep doin’ it.” She winked.

“Maddy…” Sara sat down. “I can’t speak of it.…but…”

“I told you once before, do not go telling me anything. Just go rest up and we start fresh in the morning.”

Maddy had a coughing fit into her fist and then insisted Beth to never let her drink again. “I was ‘avin the strangest dreams.” Maddy clucked away.

Sara climbed up the ladder to her cot, happy to hear Maddy singing to herself below. Her master had given both of them a day off. She was sure as to why. She knew what the new free time meant. So she waited for him to appear before her. Rush at her and take her as she would let him. But he didn’t appear. She gazed at the mirror and did not feel him there. She leaned against the windowsill and cracked it open, catching a new scent of lavender in her room. She ran her fingers along the layer of gilt dust that settled on the sill – flecks of gold that peeled from the domes of Asgard, carried in the air and washed themselves down to the cottages, collecting on every edge. She thought of visiting Marckus but she was too fatigued to walk that whole way. She then noticed that his gifts to her were absent from her nightstand. Just a tin box – but no doll. She had few possessions so it was rare to misplace them. At that moment, a horn sounded from north of the cottages.

The horn blast startled the birds from their branches in the garden. Below, Maddy cursed loudly.

Sara climbed down the ladder to the dwell space where Maddy stood before the hearth holding a pan of bread in her hands and listening to the sound as well.

“Why, I never,” she tsk’d, “Again? Of course on me day off!”

“Is that a warning herald?” Sara asked, “Or Lord Thor returned maybe?” Sara closed her long robe around her, opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. The windows of the cottages opened, revealing anxious faces that looked out toward the Odinsons’ towers wondering the same question as she.

A little girl called down to her.

“An intruder horn? Or is it a herald?”

Sara shrugged. “Perhaps that’s all it is, little one. Do not worry. We’re safe and sound here.”

As Sara turned to go back in, she stopped at the sight of six sentinels. Giants in yellow and black, bedecked in winged helmets, their scythes pointing high toward the heavens. They rounded out of the gilded alley and cut across the garden toward their cottages.

The Liason hurried alongside them and Sara expected he was leading the way but as they drew closer, she saw he was in fact arguing with them – quite fervently. They were paying him no mind.

Fear gripped her as she realized they may be heading to Loki’s tower and that something was wrong. They marched right past it and toward her cottage, instead.

In a clang of metal, they halted just in front of her. She stared at all six of them. They looked like giants, their faces stone. They looked straight over her head. She closed the robe tighter around her. The Liason stumbled up to them.

“I demand Lord Loki, son of Odin, be informed of this!” 

The Liason’s face, usually blank, was now wrecked in exasperation as he looked helplessly between her and them while the head guard spoke out in a loud boom of a voice.

“Sara Sevenston.” He stated.

After an awkward pause, Sara realized it was a question so she nodded and replied. “Yes. I am.”

“You have been found guilty of high treason.”


	5. Tales from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Odin roams the wilds of Asgard, Sara and Loki find themselves at the mercy of higher powers; all will never be the same again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline to Thor (film): This chapter starts before the scene where Loki enters the Vault, learns his true heritage and confronts Odin

King Odin held Sveinn in high esteem. In days of peace, Sveinn carried out his protection of the palace with the tenacity of a hunting dog. On his watch, no poisoned cup touched an Odinson’s mouth; no solar blast, screaming wild from the stars, crashed into unfortified windows; no door to the palace stood exposed and unmanned.

He endeared himself so well to the King and Queen, that Odin named Sveinn Head Counsellor of the Palace Peace. Though it was but a title. Everyone knew him as The Arm. With a sweep of it, spies got sorted, bribes got paid or punished. Sveinn found himself, an Asgardian of low birth, sitting at the King’s table. Anazstasia, his daughter, stood in the vanguard of potential wives to the Odinsons. It was she who gave him new evidence, gave him this new traitor to prosecute – Sara. A plain servant girl.

The guards greeted Sveinn’s entrance with a smack of fists across their chests. Sveinn, cloaked in robes of scarlet and tan, heaved his body into an ornate chair. Carved in runes along it’s back read: The Arm of Odin.

To challenge Sveinn was to challenge the good judgement of their King. No Asgardian would dare it, save the Odinsons who in their youth tested The Arm mercilessly. King Odin got so enraged at their impudence, their pretensions to be above the code, that he punished them. Rumor held that Odin disciplined Thor and Loki so severely that neither brother could speak a word for months; that Queen Frigga herself had to intervene, in particular with Loki – who did not have the strength of his brother. And she may’ve used magic to revive him.

Sveinn hated magic.

It was magic that besmirched his name. He knew for certain that only sorcery could breach his palace security.

Under his watch, Frost Giants – the cursed beasts of Jotunheim – circumvented Heimdall’s all-seeing eye, entered Asgard, and infiltrated The Vault underneath the Palace, right below his very feet while he gobbled food and wine. As the golden hall erupted in whispers as to how such a thing could happen, Sveinn rushed to his post, pushing himself through the crowds, feeling his reputation dwindle away as each second passed.

The chamber was pillar-less, sealed by four black walls. Blazing urns crackled the uneasy silence between Sara, Sveinn and his guards. Sara studied the patterns of black and gold that swirled upon the floor as she listened to The Arm declare her “crimes”: a friendship with the magician Marckus – who was now some kind of enemy to the realm and he had fled in the night; her keeping such association a secret (Volstagg’s yendil had reported this to him), which incriminated her to wrong-doing; her suspicious absence from Thor’s coronation and her posession of two strange artificats that contained sorcery.

Marckus’ enemy status was news to her. His disappearance alarmed her. But the heavy chains from her neck to her wrists alarmed her more. These were shackles for sorcerers, not mortals.

Sveinn took her silence for defiance. He peeked at his guards, standing fine and true, to make sure they were at-the-ready.

“What have you to say, girl?” Sveinn brought himself to ask.

“All you’ve said is true, my lord.” Sara spoke, finally. “I do not deny my friendship with good Marckus, or the secrecy I kept. I was unaware those were crimes. I do not deny my absence from the coronation of mighty Thor. But the objects you have taken from my quarters, do not posess magic. They are but gifts, your excellency.”

These were more words than Sara had ever spoken since coming to Asgard. Speaking them to someone as high a station as The Arm exhausted her.

Sveinn ran his thumb over her mother’s gift – a tiny box of knobby, blue stone. The tiny latch would not budge under his touch. He could not flick it open and Sara did not understand why. Neither did Sveinn. The sight of the only remnant of her mother, in his hands, made her heart sick.

“’Tis a strange ‘gift’, as you call it.” Sveinn frowned at it, then looked sternly at the flames sputtering from their sconces upon the wall. He grunted. “And this.”

He held up the wax doll. It looked melted.

Sara nodded ‘yes.’

“This is an effigy.” Sveinn accused. “A totem from an other realm, a sorcerer’s crutch. You claim to not know what it does?”

“Indeed, my lord. I do not. It was but a gift.”

Sveinn smirked. Her answer did not surprise him.

“Do you know the whereabouts of this traitor Markcus who you call good?”

Sara was silent. For being accused of high-treason, she’d expected less. No questions, but a quick death in the court. She wondered if the right answer could free her. Or kill her.

Sveinn watched her. He dug his hand into a bowl of grapes and plucked a few into his mouth, satisfied to see at least one refugee show a glimmer of remorse at their conspiring. He had harbored a creeping worry that she’d brazenly confess her guilt with all the ease of the previous three dirty wretches – as though betraying Asgard were an easy affair. It would not be good for that sort of insolence to get around.

Sveinn waved a hand at her. “You may speak freely, maid.” He chuckled and turned a jolly look at the guards. “You may be used to them from your land, but here we are not savages. Go on…” His tone condascended.

She racked her mind, her words and her heart. She could find nothing short of the truth.

Loki, she thought.

“There is no reason to keep a tongue of lead.” Sveinn said. “I will grant you beheading – a quick, clean death – if you tell us the whereabouts of the fugitive magician. Or any other information that may be to my use. If not, you will not like my sentence.”

Sara’s throat went dry and the world fogged at the word “death.”

“I – I do not know where he is. Truly, my lord.”

“Well.” Sveinn wiped a few crumbs from his robe and heaved his weight out of the chair.

The black and gold that swirled upon the floor twisted now into wretched shapes, mocking her with faces. Through a shroud of tears, she watched the flames in the urns shatter, like starburst, into orbs of gold.

Sveinn fussed a crimson parchment from the pocket of his large robes. He nodded toward the giant wall of guards behind her and in march step they surrounded her in a circle, leaving a single gap into which Sveinn now stepped.

“Sara of the Seven Villages, you are charged with conspiracy in high treason and thereby sentenced to the K –”

“Head Counsellor Sveinn!”

At the sound of the Liason’s voice, Sveinn rolled his eyes. A massive door clattered, followed by footsteps pounding on marble. The Liason hurried up to the circle, out of breath. He burrowed through a thin gap between the giant guards.

“Liason Swift.” Sveinn crossed his meaty arms.

Liason caught his breath. “With all respect to your high office and your keep of the king’s peace within the palace, this prisoner is not within your power.”

At this, Sveinn barked a laugh. His amusement faded as the Liason continued, “Not only is this unjust, unfounded hearsay…”

Sveinn did not like his hard-sought evidence be described as village gossip and would have said so had the Liason not spoken over him.

“…but she is property of an Odinson and never has property been confiscated from an Odinson. Also she stands accused for a crime commited with agents of Jotunheim – it is thus a foreign matter, not a Palace matter, and must be directly taken before the King…according to…Asgard…decrees and some such.”

Out of breath, the Liason shot a reassuring look to Sara, impressed with himself.

Sveinn smiled. He chuckled low into his wobbly chin, as though the Liason had given him a funny little anecdote to ruminate on for a while.

Then, so sudden that even the Guards startled, Sveinn roared at the Liason. “I am the Arm of Justice for the King and palace of Asgard! I know what and who is within my power! I will have your head on a spike if I see it fit!” 

To her amazement, the Liason didn’t so much as flinch as Sveinn exploded. His cheeks reddened, though. Sara imagined the Liason had been exploded upon before and much, much worse.

“I did not mean to offend, Head Counsellor.” The Liason said cooly. He bowed his head. “I meant only to remind your excellency that she is the property of Loki.” He indicated the silver bands upon her forearms. “We cannot seize what belongs to an Odinson.”

At this, Sveinn positively scoffed.

“I answer only to the King,” said Sveinn. “I do not answer to the lesser prince of Asgard! Nor have I ever! And you would do best to keep your lips closed you meddling little shit!” Still looking irritably at the Liason, Sveinn flicked open the scroll.

Just as he opened his mouth to continue the final flourishes of her death sentence, a low grumble filled the chamber. Along the wall behind him a rectangular outline glowed bright as ice.

Sveinn turned around slowly to follow the sound. Loki appeared from the wall. He walked briskly across the chamber, so preoccupied in his thoughts that he did not notice the assembly to his left.

From her spot in the locus of the circle, Sara could see Loki though he could not see her behind the massive trunks of the palace guards. A glimmer of relief kindled.

Loki looked up and noticed them. It was the closest she had ever seen him look startled. He stood cat-still and scanned the gang quickly, his arms froze stiff along his sides as though the guards would attack him at any moment.

“Lord Loki.” Sveinn called to him from the circle. His voice was artifically civil. “I, uh…is the King well?”

“That I know of, yes.” Loki replied, his posture still coiled to strike.

“Has he…uh…returned from his wanderings?”

Loki relaxed somewhat, leaned his weight on one leg and played with his fingers.

“He has not returned yet, no.”

Struck stupid in the moment, Sveinn said nothing. He gave a brief bow to show this news pleased him. Loki smiled stiffly at him in return and looked to the left and right, waiting for Sveinn to speak.

“I-I believe I was summoned.” Loki said. He clasped his hands behind his back and extended his stiff smile in the general direction of the guards.

Sveinn shook his head as to say ‘no’.

Loki nodded and looked at the ground, perplexed.

When it was clear that Loki was not leaving and that there was nothing more to say to each other, Sveinn stepped away from the circle and said quietly, “I am in the middle of a sentencing.”

Sveinn looked at Loki with a constipated expression, communicating without words that he wished Loki to carry on and out another invisible door with whatever hurried business he had and do so quickly. Loki ignored this look, stepped past him, and asked “Is that so?”

Genuinely interested, Loki passed Sveinn by and approached the gap in the circle. Sveinn hid a look of annoyance as he did so.

Cautious, Loki tilted his head to see who was being sentenced. He saw Sara.

He froze.

In the second her eyes met his, a look of fear flashed across his face. She dropped her gaze back to the floor.

Loki’s voice turned light and soft as a child’s. “I see one of my own servants stands accused. What is the crime, good Sveinn?” Sara – and perhaps the Liason - could detect the darker tremble underneath their master’s innocent tone.

Loki slowly approached Sara, shooting a dark look at the Liason as he did so. Sveinn hurried just slightly ahead of Loki so it looked as though he were leading him to the prisoner.

“Conspiracy.” Sveinn boasted.

“Conspiracy.” Loki repeated. “To what?”

Irritated to explain himself, Sveinn crossed his arms.

“The Jotun trespass, my lord.” Sveinn just barely hid a sneer. Loki ignored it. He’d been staring at the space above Sara’s shoulder where a guard’s hand held it firm.

With lips parted, Loki looked to her, the guards and Sveinn cautiously, as though all of them – she included – were presenting him with a complex puzzle and he had but seconds to guess the answer.

“Why was I not informed of this?” Loki turned to Sveinn. Behind his back, Loki’s fists tightened. His fingers red, his knuckles pale white.

The sneer in Sveinn’s voice could hardly stay down this time. “I would not dare trouble your excellent Lordship with the crime of a petty servant.”

Carefully, Loki replied. His face defiant, his voice low.

“You serve the King well. Of course you need not inform the ‘lesser prince of Asgard.’”

An awkward silence landed between the two of them. With a petulant and steely silence, Loki waited for Sveinn to wince at being caught insulting an Odinson, but none such apology came. Or discomfort. It was a double slight. Sveinn merely raised his chin at Loki. Loki smiled to himself.

“Is it necessary to restrain her so?” Loki returned his gaze to her bonds, then up to her shoulder where the guard’s palm held her firm. “She is not Asgardian.”

Sveinn looked outright impatient at this line of questioning.

“She consorts with magicians and may be witch herself.”

At the mention of “consorting,” Sara worried that her master’s jealousy would explode and he’d perhaps kill her himself. To her surprise, Loki had no reaction to this. Rather, he glanced up and took in the height of the Palace Guards, who stood twice as tall as his own head. His eyes danced across them all, weighing their collective strength against him.

“I take precautions.” Sveinn stated and nodded to the guard. A second hand thunked down upon her shoulder.

The flames along the walls exploded into bright emerald green. Sveinn glanced at the flames, then to Loki.

“I see.” Loki said, quiet. He swallowed. “If she is capable of magic, then, she should be held in the dungeon.”

“For Conspiracy? I think not. She will be taken to the Keep of Sala. Like I said – I take precautions.”

Loki looked as though he would be sick.

“She perishes at dawn.” Sveinn added and gestured to the guards.

They pulled Sara to her feet and for a split second, Loki moved as though he would stop them but he backed away slowly and watched them take her away.

Sveinn watched Loki and yelled after them.

“Triple her guards!”

~~

Sara stood on the thundering shore. Across the water stood a simple look-out tower of bronze. Two sentinels stood at the door, their scepters crossed. White-crested waves thrashed across a path of broken stones that connecting the shore to the tiny island that held the Keep of Sala.

Loki, a god that could rage and terrorize her at his whim, stood powerless as his father’s guards marched her away. He did nothing to stop them. Sara lowered her eyes. From behind her, she heard Sveinn mutter to his guards. “Let’s get on with this.”

Tears fell from her eyes as a monk emerged from the shadows and stood before her. He had no face. Whenever she tried to discern his features, she perceived only smudges – as though his face had been blotted out of the memory of anyone who gazed upon it. He mumbled to himself and waved his hands across her body. The silver bands upon her wrists cracked open and landed on the pebbled shore, leaving only the prison chains upon her arms.

With shrivelled hands, the monk worked his ancient rites – spouting gutteral chants, ancient noises that Sara did not recognize. Emptily, she let him do it all and only gazed at the tower on the island. He brought a cup to her lips, calling it an Elixir of Stone and, numbly, she drank it. It tasted of sour pomegranates and blood. Along the corridors of her veins, something vanished. Crept away. It felt as though her blood turned to clouds. She could not feel her master’s presence. No longer. She scanned the pounding surf, the high juts of rocks, the small domes of brass glinting in the dying sun. Loki was nowhere.

Sveinn raised his voice over the roaring tides.

“The mercy of Odin may go with you, traitor. But the majesty of Asgard will not.”

A guard knudged Sara forward, indicating she was to go alone.

Gathering any sense of honor she could muster, Sara rose her chin and stepped forward. As she did, she heard a commotion in the band of guards behind her. In the roar of the ocean she could only make out the words Odin and the Vault.

Half of Sveinn’s band left immediately. Sveinn remained and nodded at her, grimly, to keep walking. Balacing her weight, clutching her fists to her stomach, Sara made her way across the stones and the water thrashed at her ankles.

Once before the tower, Sara witnessed the last courtesy she would receive in this world. It came at the hands of the two sentinels who opened the doors for her as she entered.

The doors clanged shut behind her, leaving nothing but blackness. Save one place. Though she entered a plain look-out tower, no higher than a young tree, inside there was a high dome. At it’s height, an oculus poured down a circle of moonlight. In the center of the circle, stood a long dais.

Alone, Sara descended the long stair. Balancing carefully, she stepped. And with each step, voices filled her ears. These voices pleaded with her, cried, laughed. Some sounded familiar – the voices of old. They brushed across her ears as though they were made of feathers.

When she descended the stair, and her foot touched solid ground, a peel of thunder cracked. It was so deafening, Sara slammed her chained hands around her ears to keep them from exploding. As she approached the dais, the thunder bellowed again, followed by lightning. And in the eye-blink of it’s jagged light, Sara saw a terrifying scene. A vast valley, as wide as a thousand kingdoms, writhing like waves in the sea. Wraiths, ghosts and corpses of people twisted and reached out to her, their horrid faces bathed in blue lightning as it forked across the darkness. Mouths open and wailing, they clutched at the hem of her cloak. Cold fingers, bereft of life, grazed her ankles.

She rushed to the long, marble platform that stood in the light of the moon. When she crawled atop it – the thunder groaned away, the tempest died, and the ghastly faces vanished. From the blackness, an arm of bone and knuckle reached out to her on the dais and retreated as the last groan of thunder rolled away.

Under the spotlight of the moon, Sara looked ahead into plain, pitch-blackness again. Terrified and seeing nothing, Sara dared not breathe too loud or move. Only the sound of her shallow breathing kept her company.

Before long, she could no longer remember if it were day or night, or how long she’d been there. Had she always been there? She could no longer feel her master’s presence. She could not feel him watching her anymore. She could not feel him. She felt nothing.

She was entirely alone.

In the eternity of silence, a voice spoke. Did it come from yesterday? Or was it her own? A rattle of her own chains startled her to wake. She had been laying on the dais, her arms cradled around her legs.

“Eeeeeatttt.”

The voice sounded female but just barely so. It sounded as though it were trying on a mortal’s voice and failing slightly. Sara wondered where the voice came from. She looked above and saw nothing but a large, black bird perched on the edge of the oculus above.

“Eeeattt….”

Just on the edge of the cone of moonlight surrounding her, two podiums sat. On one stood a plate of fruit, and on the other, a flagon of water.

Though she was afraid, Sara couldn’t help but smile weakly at the trick. As though she were foolish enough to attempt. To set foot on the threshold and unleash the nightmares in the dark again. She may’ve been a provincial girl, but even in the villages this sort of trap was common.

“I will not take your bait.” Sara said quietly to herself, though it was in reply to the Voice.

She stretched out her finger and poked the air just beyond the border of light around the dais. Sure enough, lightning flashed and as it did, a wraith with murky eyes screamed before her face, it’s teeth red with blood.

“Whennnn the ssssssun sets upon your life, the sssssouls will come and feeeeast on…. youuu of innnnnnocent blood. The Keeeeeeep eats souls stained and innocent aliiike. The innocenttt taste so much sweeeter.”

Sara rested her head on her knees, shut her eyes and thought of her mother. The feel of her hair upon her forehead when she sang to her. The sound of her voice thrumming through her chest as Sara lay her head upon it when she was child. It kept the Voice’s taunts at bay.

Sensing that Sara had retreated into a safe, inner world, the Voice hissed impatiently. “There are torturesssss heeeere for the innocent, too.”

Wisps of smoke, ropey and white, curled from under the dais and snaked toward Sara’s ankles, then curled around the bronze chains upon her wrists, snapped them off as though they were made of timber sticks. Before Sara could free her hands, the smoke curled around them, and around her throat.

For some time, she sat curled in the phantom chains. Her mind clouded over. She heard a bell toll in the distance (was it in her mind?). Her robe lay damp in the mist and stuck in patches to her skin. She gazed up at the oculus. It was forboding as a demon’s eye now. There she saw only a bird. Had it ever left? Had she just arrived here?

Her mind dismantled piece by piece. It made her feel quite finished with everything – her life, Asgard, all of it. She could only hear her brothers and sisters crying in her head. Her mother’s laughter. The sound of neighbors screaming as the raiders came, spreading fire across their homes, burning them alive….burning her…

She wondered if she would see her mother when she died. On the sides of her mind, she saw a wide open valley – dark as a mouth and full of stones.

The bird beat it’s wings, fluttered in a circle and then perched again on another side of the demon’s eye. Sara smiled at it. It was her only friend. It was a night bird – for it must still be night, Sara thought. Though she could not tell if it were moonlight upon her face or the light of dawn. The bird flapped it’s wings. It had been watching her.

She raised her hand up to it. The thin, white vapors that bound her wrists swayed in the air when Sara beckoned the little bird to come down.

“Come, raven. Keep me company. It is very dark here and I have no one to talk to.”

Before she finished speaking the raven swooped down through the oculus.

It beat it’s wings in a wide circle around the dais, before crashing down to her feet. It feathers shook and it’s little body pulsed, then glowed and slowly grew – transforming into a tall figure, crouched, shivering and barebreasted. Dark hair matted to it’s pale, sweaty face. It’s eyes a paler blue than ice.

Stunned, Sara watched the apparition become flesh and blood.

Still crouching, Loki held himself up by his fingertips and sucked in breaths of air as he finished transforming. Only pants and boots bedecked his pale limbs. He winced in pain as he tried to materialize a suit upon his back but out of strength, he gave up and hung his head, gasping for air.

“That….was…. an eternity.” Loki whispered angrily.

“My lord.” Sara gasped. She saw her hand reach out to him before she could stop herself. He did not look well.

“Why did you not beckon me sooner?” Loki scowled. “No magic…nothing…can enter this damned place. A raven can enter only when called.”

“I did not know that was you, my lord.” Sara said, mystified that he could change forms. Her hand met his bare back. It was cold. In the gloom, she watched him catch his breath. Puffs of frost escaped his lips and burned white in the moonlight as he fought for air. She’d been tortured, scared and scattered here but the sight of her lord made her heart sick. There was no more mercury in him. No mischief. No power. He looked very much like a broken bird, a boy lost. She wondered for a moment if it were even Loki. 

“Are you hurt?” He made out, finally, in between gasps for air.

She shook her head ‘no.”

Loki shut his eyes tight, swallowed hard and finally caught his breath. Then he crouched over her, collapsing his height unto itself. With no words, he gathered her body up into his arms. He held her face in his hands and studied it, looking for damage. Her cheeks burned ice-cold under his touch.

Spotting the white vapors around her neck, her wrists and ankles, a vein pulsed in his forehead under black strands of hair. He grabbed the phantom bonds in a fury. Steam hissed from his palms as he shook them.

“What is this!?” Loki yelled at the Darkness. The Voice did not reply.

“You give her the Rain of Dawn?? A mortal??” He shouted again. The Voice did not respond. He was met only with his own echoes. “You quim of hell! Come out and face me!”

He hopped off the dais in a rage.

“My lord!” Sara motioned to the ground upon which Loki stood. But his bare feet did not crack lightning or bring a tempest. It did not call forth wretched spirits to wail at him and pull him in.

Loki looked back at her and then at his feet, contemplative.

“Do not worry yourself. I am damned already.”

He sat down beside her, steepled his fingers together and pressed them hard against his lips. His eyes darted frantically left and right as he thought hard.

“Sara, I cannot free you. I went to my…father – ”

It was as at that very word Loki’s face contorted. He collapsed away from his racing thoughts and into a sorrow that shook him like a cold, wintered wind. His fingers tugged through his hair and he gripped it. Sara thought she heard him weep.

“What troubles you, my lord?”

To himself and to her, Loki spoke, barely coherent.

“I’ve just returned… from the Vault to see… ..and he was there, I was to ask him pardon you…but I had to know…I thought there was a remedy…the Casket was there…and I had to know….and now…it is too late…”

Sara did not understand him but all she could see was his distress. She was going to die very soon. Return to her ancestors. In the hush of cold he brought with him, in the silence of the dais, that thought comforted her. Expecting a lash of anger, she put a hand on the back of his head to console him. She feared him no longer.

At her touch, Loki shot up, remembering his train of thought.

“And he fell…he sleeps and…” He looked down at her chains. “…They’ll know…what I am…they’ll come after me, too. As they should.”

Sara moved to put her arms around him and as she did her toe slipped just over the rim of the dais. In the split second, lightning forked around the two of them and before it died, she saw Loki’s face turn blue as dark veins; his eyes, red as blood.

Though she’d been taught to fear them, though she had heard of their terror, she had never laid eyes on a Frost Giant. She looked at him, shocked.

“You see what I am.” Loki said.

Sara slid her hand up the side of his face. She smiled.

“You are far more terrifying than that, my lord.”

Despite himself, a slight smile crept up his lips. He glanced down at the whisps around her wrists.

“You are in chains, damned to death and yet you jest.”

Loki ran his hands up her arms as she held him. He gripped them and brought them away from his shoulders. Holding her wrists in one hand, he pulled her head to him with his other. He pulled her in so close that his cold breath feathered on her lips as he spoke.

“Why did you not confess?” Loki whispered. There was a hiss of accusation under it. “You knew I had done it. He could’ve spared your life. And if Odin came for me, I would have fled.”

“Where to, my lord?” Sara challenged him in a soft tone. “Where could you go that Odin would not tread?”

At this, Loki scoffed. “There are many paths between the realms. Other worlds. I mean to know them all.”

Then quiet and regretful, Loki went on. “I was too slow. I sensed you. I heard you call for me. I thought you were in your chambers. Then I find that wretch Sveinn and his guards…and you.” He exhaled a slow frustration. “Why did you not tell him, Sara?”

His face was serious. He stared at her, his eyes blank.

“Is it because you fear me?”

“No, that is not why, my lord.”

“Do not say it is because you love me.” Loki stated it. He blinked. But just once. His eyes grim, he did not break their steady gaze thereafter.

A silence engulfed the cold air between them.

Sara did not know what “love” was. Only in song, in her village, had she heard of it. And the new songs in Asgard spoke only of war, of hunts and of ancient grudges. But, yet…she felt a sting in her heart at the word.

“In truth, my lord. I feared you would be banished, as well.” Sara looked her master straight in both eyes and whispered into his lips. “Believe me. Every one needs a home. Even you, my lord.” Sara said. “This is your home.”

Loki replied only with a smile that tried to form on his face but lacking certainty died half-way there.

“I know a monster when I see one, my lord.” Sara said, tracing a hand across his brow. “And you are no monster.”

He blinked slow at her words, as though a hard breeze swept across his face. He tightened his grip on her wrists.

“Sara.” He looked down at the snakes of smoke around her limbs. “You are in grave danger and it is my fault.”

“I’ve always been in grave danger.”

“Not like this.” Loki said, stern. “The torments here have already dulled your mind, I can see. When they come they will rip you apart until you are but a fragment of a soul.”

In the fog of her mind, she had a lucid moment where the thought did not sound like a peaceful death.

His eyes brightened as a new thought hit him. “I will turn you into a raven. You will fly out with me.” He had very little strength left for magic, but he put arms around her, squeezed her into him and chanted in her ear. Sara felt her body go cold in his grasp. The muck of stones rose in her blood. Behind her ear, Loki whispered. “Hold onto me, Sara and let….let—-what.”

He released and looked at her perplexed.

“Have you drunk any thing? Did they give you a drink before you entered?”

Sara nodded. “Yes, my lord. I was given an elixir of Stone.”

His face fell. Loki grappled her arms and cursed. Shutting his eyes tight in barely-controlled rage, he snarled, his voice echoing in the dark. “That wretched monk is still alive. I will find him, twist him into a tree and cut him down limb by limb, with the dullest blade in Asgard and I will burn each branch, piece by piece.”

Just then the chains began to pull taught around her. Loki went to grab them, tried to rip them apart, but they were like hot iron under his fingers and incinerated his skin. Hands steaming, Loki tore at them still. It was the only time he wished for Thor’s brute strength.

“No.” Loki stammered as the chains pulled Sara flat upon the stone. Desperately, Loki looked around him and up to the oculus. There was no rain yet. It was not yet dawn.

“Do not leave me, Sara.” Upon one knee, Loki crouched above Sara’s body and repeated his demand to her. Sara saw him less and less, though she looked up at him. His lips moved, his eyes searched her but only in her mind could she hear his refrain: Do not leave, do not leave me.

She was going far away.

Though she was drifting in a dark sleep, she could feel Loki’s damp mouth on her neck, her lips, her cheeks. His fingers crept behind her head to hold it away from the cold stone.

In her ear, and earnestly, Loki whispered. “Stay here. Stay…”

Toward a dark valley, Sara drifted but hearing Loki’s command, she lingered on the threshold where she could see him above her, his head a silhouette in the bright of the oculus, his eyes blue and pleading, his hands searching her body for the place he could reach her and keep her with him.

In trembling voice, Loki repeated himself. “Please, Sara.”

She heard his voice ricochet around the dark corners of the world.

Loki devoured her skin with his lips and hands, hungrily kissed her breasts, her legs, her sex, everywhere. In trembling voice, he repeated himself. Please, Sara. Stay. Stay here.

Each time his lips touched her skin, they were met with piercing agony, hot-iron and the heat of suns. Lust swelled inside him but with each kiss, the pain incinerated his senses.

“Damn.” Loki whispered to himself. “Now I know I am in hell.”

Sara watched him heaving above her, his face torn in despair. She wanted to call out to him that all would be right. She was going somewhere that perhaps she always longed to go. But she had no voice to tell him so. No voice. No longer.

Rain began to fall from the eye of the oculus. Loki swept his head to look up at it. Casting down as slow and delicate as snow from that great height, the drops fell and landed on his forehead. They burned on his skin.

The rising sun would soon bring daylight with it and, in turn, kill the night and it’s raven-spirit. He held the raven-spirit in him still – it took all his strength to hold it there so he could turn back into it at whim. Daylight and raven could not exist at once.

He hated the dawn more than he ever imagined one could hate a time of day. For it would turn her soft body forever into a wraith – away from his touch, his view, his command. 

Sara winced under burning light rain that fell on her head. Loki looked back down to her and watched a drop hiss and burn on her shoulder, another on her forehead, yet another on her cheek. He rushed to shield her face from it.

Silently, Loki covered her with his whole body and the rain fell on his hair and on his bare back, where it landed and sizzled upon his skin. But none hit her soft, plain face. They would not torment her while he was here. He could find any path to anywhere in the realms, but not into the nameless horror of the Everafter where she headed. It was beyond his powers. It was beyond all their powers, save Odin. Sleeping Odin. Curse him.

In hope, Loki whispered to her. “I will free you, I will resurrect you. Now or one day, I will come for you. Sleep now.”

Sara heard his voice in the barren hills of night and wind where she went walking. The silent graves and still bodies of those she once loved sat upon the shadows, not within them, and they stretched their hands out to her.

Sleep. She heard her master say. I will free you from this grave.

Huddled over her, Loki stayed for as long as the rain fell and she slept peaceful, with no torments. No wincing. No more startling under his rages. No more grasping for air under his grip. She would be at peace. The drops welted his back and he did not budge. For hours, Loki watched her sleeping, as though memorizing her face, trying to burn it’s visage into his mind for eternity. This day had brought him torments – the wretched truth of where he came, of where he no longer belonged, of Odin fallen into sleep – and now the night was curling its finger over the edge to take the very last piece from him.

Quietly and half-mad, Loki spoke to her while she slept – this soft, simple creature that was in his power, who did not forsake him when all else had. For hours, the dew and rain collected in his hair and burned his back as he whispered to her, hoping that in whatever darkness she walked she could hear his voice and not stray far, not step into the blackest shadows where no heart could bear.

After some time, the first light of dawn peeked over the oculus. It pierced his body and raven form overtook him. Up in circles, the raven flew, breaching the eye of the dome and beating it’s wings wildly into the dawn.


	6. Tales from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki’s made king and there be Hel to pay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events in this chapter start from just after Loki’s been given Gungnir, Odin’s spear.
> 
> This chapter follows the Deleted Scene Version of Thor(film) where Frigga gives Loki Gungnir in Odin’s chamber and then the Warriors 3/Lady Sif visit him later.

The wind howled and hissed through the gaps of bleak hills. Choked with dust, it blew across the barren Tree of Souls which stood at the edge of a high cliff carrying the voices of the dead over branches where no leaves grew.

West or East refused to exist here. If this realm possessed a West, or an East, the massive valleys that stretched to black horizons had swallowed them whole. Lightning cracked across the Never-west and illuminated valleys writhing with souls; and to the East that Never Could Be, the wind blew coldest. There stretched nine frozen rivers; giant, unmoving kingdoms of water, glowing ice-white under the moon. Glacier-slow they snaked from the passes of the god-size mountains beyond.

High and narrow, a thin bridge stretched across a chasm to which no eye could see the bottom. This was the Pass of Passes. Here the wind blew hardest. Here memories slipped away with each soundless step. Here veils of mists drifted across the high moon that cast a faint light on a figure, slow-moving, wandering across the pass in the darkness.

Though her eyes did not know what she saw, she looked far beyond her, leagues and centuries away, where the moonlight could barely reach. There, towering gates of black iron stood high, guarding the entrance to mansions of lightless windows. Dead windows. Down in the abysmal dark and leading to the gates stretched a gilded-roof bridge glinting in the blackness. A knight stood before it, nestled like a small toy in the deep, dark chasm of the world. His eyes burned furious and gold. He stared into nothing.

She reached the end of the Pass of Passes and was going to keep her course along the road which would take her, an eternity later, to that bridge, but she felt a voice call to her.

Off the path, on the barren hill-side, a figure sat upon a rock.

The girl who was Sara glided down the slope. A Shadow followed her. It had followed her for ages, reaching out from every crevice. It crept behind her as she went to the figure upon the rock and knelt before her.

A few slivers of hair flowed from its head the color of ash. Dark hollows sat where her eyes once shined; flesh charred black where it once had been full of life. Under the bone-colored light of the moon, the corpse put a hand to Sara’s face and she felt who she was.

In her mind she knew Mother.

Black shadows danced around her, trying to enter her but they broke apart before they could touch her. The pursuing Shadow rolled back and waited.

Upon Sara’s face, the woman breathed a dust from her soundless mouth and spoke into her mind. Her mother’s voice echoed in its chambers – empty of memories now. If a heart could live in this cold land, it began to pump at the sound of her voice; a sound so pleasant, that Sara’s spectral heart swelled like the summer sea.

In her mind, the voice spoke and told her of the Shadow upon her, picking slowly at her soul. She had travelled far to see her – her child from so very, very far away, she’d said. She could not stay much longer. She was to return to the land of tall grasses and sunrise. With her blackened hand, the woman who sat upon the rock plucked from the ground, black slivers, thin and frail. She ornamented them delicately in Sara’s hair as flowers and said they could protect her.

Sara lay at her bare, charred feet and slept. With one hand upon her head, her mother whispered over her – strange words, beautiful words long dead to the world of living. They travelled into Sara’s ear as she laid upon her mother’s feet, weary. Soon, the voice fell quiet. The hand stroking her hair went still. Remember who you are….

Only a blessing sleeping in the dark of her hollow soul remained. Around this blessing, whispers filled her head – the voices of the dead – who dwelled in this waste outside of Hel. The Shadow crawled nearer to seize it, to pluck it from her soul. As it neared, the rocks under her limbs shook. Before her sightless eyes, the rocks turned to pale, dead hands. They gripped her to the ground and picked at her soul – the sunlight, the tall grasses, the voice of her mother slid away from her, too. 

With her eyes dark, she watched The Shadow gather around her and coil itself into smoke and take the shape of a serpent – its eyes gold, its hiss the sound of the homeless dead crying out. It reeled up to the heavens, bent back its massive head and poised to strike down on her.

Its mouth opened and revealed fangs as giant as ancient trees and drenched in blood. Sara closed her eyes as it’s mouth crashed down toward her. Before the final darkness came, the shadow-serpent let out a cry and reeled upward. Its head twisted back toward the rocky slope from which Sara had just descended.

A lean figure stood upon the slope. It’s green cape whipped in the tempest of black winds that howled around it. Its gold horns lowered, it leveled a mighty staff at the serpent’s head below. The Shadow drew up to its full height and towered over the lone figure a hundred leagues high. The pale god rose his spear skyward. It blazed silver-gold and burned the shadows upon the air which lurched away from its light. The serpent opened its jaws, shrieked into the heavens and slammed down upon the pale god.

When it pulled its head back up, the pale god was gone.

She heard faint laughter in the distance, carrying on the winds as they tore about her. Laughing, the pale god re-appeared behind the thrashing tail of the Shadow. The Shadow dashed and twisted and lashed at him with no success for the gold-horned figure would merely turn, vanish and materialize elsewhere, leaving the Shadow to strike its giant fangs upon dead ground.

The laughter faded away as the caped figure raced up the slope and disappeared over the summit, the Serpent in hot-pursuit of him. With their exit, the tempest died around Sara. An endless time, she lay. Sara stared overhead with dead eyes and watched a flock of ravens pass overheard, their cries desolate and lone in the lightning-flicked sky.

A piercing cry sounded in the distance. The pale hands of the earth, one by one, loosened their hold upon her.

Soon, she felt a hand upon her hand and a voice from far beyond the beyond.

“Do not let go of my hand, Sara.” She did not know the words spoken to her, a language she’d never heard, yet the crush of the grip around her fingers felt familiar, the voice kindled a dark ash somewhere in the perishing of her soul. Unresponsive, Sara stared above and clouds left her eyes.

“Sara! You must come!”

The voice tore through her with a vengeance. It’s vigor jolted her and the fingers upon her hand flinched. The second they twinged in life, the pale god’s hand gripped her hand with all his might and tore her up from the ground. The power of motion flew through his hand and into hers. They raced up the slope toward the Pass of Passes.

Far below and beyond, the knight with gold eyes stood still and watchful before his bridge in the dark, ancient hollow of Hel.

As they hurried across the Pass of Passes, the wind howled and tore at her limbs as though it had a mind all its own to rip her apart and toss the pieces into its currents. He leaned into it as solid as stone and it could not budge him. His hand gripped tighter; it was the grip of a god – impossible to break.

As they cleared the pass and hurried through the barren hills, choked in dust, the Tree of Souls loomed overhead, cracked and lit by lightning. A thousand voices called out to be remembered.

Soon, a dark shadow leapt into Sara. In a female voice that sounded like her own but was not her own, she called out to the god who held her hand.

“Look at me!” The Voice demanded.

The pale god would not turn back.

“Look at me, Loki! I am falling!”

But the lean god, pale as the moonlight upon their heads, would not turn.

“Your trap is for a fool.” He called out over his shoulder but would not set his eyes on Sara. “I will not fall in it.”

In a billow of air, the Shadow leapt from Sara’s body and scrambled away with the ugly swiftness of a spider. It collapsed its legs and huddled back into the crevices of the shadows.

They trudged across vast plains where black, icy winds howled and fought to tear apart their grip. The lean god’s voice carried upon the winds and repeated. “Do not let go of my hand, Sara. Do not let go.” Her fingers stayed locked upon his. For centuries they travelled across barren lands of black ash and wind and the small moon – ever steady, ever slowly – grew bigger and brighter. The long hand around hers clenched tighter and tighter.

Soon, the moon was so bright and large before them that it hurt her eyes. Her lids forced themselves shut against the burn of its light.

For an eternity, she watched dark curtains fall and rise over the blinding light.

A drop of water hit her upon the forehead.

Cold lips pressed upon hers and a gush of wind filled her lungs. A sharp intake of breath startled her awake. As she exhaled, she saw before her eyes that it was not curtains across the moon but her lids, blinking slow under a bright oculus that beamed down from above.

“Sara, come. Now.” The voice near her spoke.

The lean god fixed his hand onto hers and pulled her off the dais. The scepter in his hand blazed gold and the bounds broke away from her. She ran but her legs did not feel real. As they fled she caught glimpses of him in the flashes of lightning that tore across the dark. The golden horns were gone. He was raven-dark hair, pale skin, and felt solid as flesh and bone in a world of phantoms that trembled around them.

Hundreds of twisted faces gnashed their teeth, reached out to seize them. The scepter in his hand blazed again and the phantoms reeled back. In the scepter’s glow, she saw shadows creeping beneath his blue eyes, trying to enter him.

They raced…up and up….and finally out to the air of the living, the brinks of sunrise, birdsong and rushing waters – the sound of which deafened her dying ears. In agony, she sank to the ground.

Loki gathered her up in his arms and raced away from the Keep. In her weak limbs, his strength crushed around her with the force of revolving planets, of stars pressing stars. His pale neck showed no signs of strain as he sprinted upon the stones across the teeming waters.

At the shore, a monk hurried out to greet them. Under his hood, she saw his face clearly now and shut her eyes to it for it was a face full of nightmares, of old, blistering worlds. With her ear pressed against Loki’s chest, she heard only the bass of his voice rumble as he spoke civilly to the monk as he hurried past.

As they fled through the grove of trees, a storm of birds rushed past in the opposite direction, their wings beating fiercely about her ears. Soon the noise was drowned out by the screams of the monk as a battalion of claws and beaks tore him apart.

“Sara, stay here. We are not far.” The lean god spoke.

Daylight was brimming over the high, white peaks of the mountains. Seeing this, Loki cursed, gripped her tighter and in a blink, they vanished into the air.

High curtains, light as clouds, white as the blossoms on branches that wove through every rib of wood; that flittered in every patch of sunlight that poured through the wrought-gold dome overhead. The curtains billowed. They were her mother’s dress flowing in the sun as she told Sara to follow her. In the next moment, they were curtains draped from the arches. Sara lingered in the dream, enraptured with the lightness as it washed away the gloom that broiled violently inside her mind. Warm water pulsed over her limbs, bringing with it new life, prickling energies. She sank in the sensation of voices, murmuring soft over her and reciting chants. She let the music of that meet the strong incenses that wafted over her. She did not fight these sensations away.

Remember who you are, my child, from so very, very far. The words echoed in the chambers of her mind. Chambers that closed shut. This door, then that door. Slowly. As each second passed. Sara tried to raise her head from the waters. It was heavy.

“She’s coming to, m’lady!” A voice cried out. It’s volume met Sara’s ears with the harshness of screeching brass.

A woman with a voice of a river spoke in soothing tones, silencing the excited voice. Sara heard the excited voice say that she was going to dispose of “these ugly ashes.” Her head felt lighter as each dark sliver of ash was pulled from out of her hair.

With the little strength she had, Sara stayed the girl’s hand, looked at the ashes, then to her begging with her eyes to not throw them out. The girl with the excited voice looked strangely at the woman with a voice of a river. From an ornate jug, the woman poured multi-colored water into a goblet and nodded to the girl to do as the lady said.

Strong arms pulled Sara from the warm waters. The Yendil healer ran her strong hands upon Sara’s face and muttered syllables of ancient spells and they washed over Sara like music, rejuvinating her senses, her thoughts. The girl with the excited voice dried Sara and wrapped her in a heavy silk gown of black and green

Sara did not know who she was – or where she was – but she knew that she was alive and that her Mother’s blessing beat inside her heart. Remember who you are.

“The King insists you drink this. You must.”

A goblet appeared before her eyes and remembering the last time she drank from one, Sara fought it away. The three women restrained her.

“I will not return – damn you.” Sara yelled. The sound of her own voice startled her. It startled her so much that she looked between the three ladies, confused.

“What is that?” Sara asked, meaning her voice. 

“It’s an elixir. It will revive you, Sara.” The woman with a river’s voice said into her ear.

“Sara?” she repeated, over and over. “Who? Who is Sara?”

“She is a girl who died in the realm beyond naming and will remain there if you do not drink this, you stubborn fool!” said the Yendil, shaking her head and wrapping her fingers around Sara’s upon the goblet. She pushed it toward her mouth again.

“It works on memories.” Soothed the river-voice. Then, with a stern look at the Yendil, she added. “If you did it right, that is.”

“Well, we don’t get many Hel folk in here these days, Bryn!” the Yendil jeered. “I can only do so much! The Shadow could’ve taken all of her. It’s beyond my skills.”

“It’s not beyond your skills.” Said Bryn, the woman with a voice of a river.

“The new king insists. This will restore you. Please.” The girl with the excited vioce lifted the chalice to Sara’s lips. With no fight left, and reading the kindness that embered in the three pairs of eyes before her, Sara drank from it.

Her reflection stared back at her from a grand mirror. It watched her watching herself. As the elixir coursed through her body, she saw her mother, for a moment, looking back at her. The image faded with a whisper. Remember….

Sara walked to the mirror, transfixed. With each step, tendrils of shadows shot out from her, whipped about her, curled in spasms, then died in the morning air. Soon, Sara stood before her own face. What she thought was her face. The world sharpened focus. This seperated from that. The water separate from mirror. The light separate from shadows. The voices she heard belonged to people. She was one of them. Colors came – this was red. That, yellow. Words and their images wheeled slowly back into her knowledge….knowledge – the heartbeat of the world.

She looked around and met the relieved faces of the three women. There, Yendil. There, girl. There, woman. The light no longer blinded her eyes anymore. Daylight poured in the arches. Beyond the arches lay Asgard. That is where she was.

“Asgard?” Sara said.

“Yes, m’lady.” Said the girl with the excited voice.

Words made sense but the rush of images that they brought along with them dazzled Sara. Silently, she turned back to the mirror unsure of who she saw.

“Who is that?” Sara pointed at her reflection. She was of flesh. Blood under her skin. Dark shadows below her eyes. Hair dark and thick upon her shoulders.

“That is you, m’lady.

The women gave her more elixir to drink. They placed belts around her waist, bangles upon her wrists. They swept her hair up into clasps of hard gold and spoke amongst themselves about their queen who was ill with grief and kept vigil by her husband’s bed. They told Sara that she was to go to the citadel, to see the King as soon as she was well.

Intricate webs of gold interlocked with each other and ran up the giant doors of the palace. Sara marvelled at them as they opened before her onto a colossal court lined with towering pillars of bronze that rose so high she could not see their tops without tilting her head up. Leagues ahead, a pyramid of wide, black steps crawled upward to a gilded throne, beset by flames and two sentinels who stood before it. A figure sat upon it.

Tremulous and quiet, Sara moved toward the King. A long line of palace guards stood to her left, equidistant from eachother and still as statues. To her right, the noble Assembly observed her entrance with a mixture of curiousity or boredom. She darted her eyes between the Assembly, the sky beyond the pillars burning orange in the sunset, and the throne, where the king sat. Two long horns curved from his gold helmet. His right hand gripped a mighty scepter. Sunk down into his seat, he watched her as she drew nearer. 

Close enough to make out his eyes below the horns, she recognized him. He had fought the Shadow and lead her across the dark lands. It was his hand upon hers. The tight grip in a world of phantom. Slow as seeping water, memories trickled from the far reaches of her mind until she was back in this present, this very place.

Her steps felt tiny in such a grand hall. Her slippers scuffed along the smooth, black floors, etched in gold mazing. It was as though it’d take years to reach the throne.

The king rose his hand. She kept walking. A rustle of commotion fluttered across the faces of the Assembly and Sara realized that his gesture meant for her to stop.

She paused before the steps and muscle-memory kicked in, bending her knee for her.

Loki’s eyes followed her down as she knelt with lowered head.

Without pause, he spoke out in a clear voice.

“Before the Royal Assembly and all Asgard, I declare this prisoner, Sara Sevenston, innocent. In all the realms, her name, her ancestors and her kin will be free and clear of the tarnish of treason. She is no longer servant but citizen of Asgard.”

Treason? The word glimmered in her mind. And with the word came images of a proud man’s face sentencing her to death.

Loki glanced regally at the Assembly. They nodded back at him.

“Furthermore,” he said, in a tone both calm and insolent. “From Head Counsellor Sveinn, I remove the burden of his service. He served Odin with high esteem but his reign of bigotry within the palace is over.”

Nervously, the Assembly bowed in agreement. The horns on the new king dipped and rose at them when a few applauded him. Loki flashed them a grin. Some of the Assembly remained quiet. They had secretly liked Sveinn’s distrust of foreigners.

“While we are at war with Jotunheim, I decree that all crimes within and without these walls will be brought before me.”

This was not met with applause. The smug smile left the king’s lips as a ripple of protest mumbled its way down the line of the Assembly.

The lean king sat up in his throne, placed his free hand upon his heart and spoke with a trembling voice.

“While my father sleeps, I am not just king but guardian of this realm. It is my wish that I, and only I, be accountable for the enemies within our doors.”

The Assembly went quiet. Loki sat back in his throne and returned his gaze to Sara below.

“I dismiss you, Sara Sevenston. As citizen, may you honor and serve your kingdom and king in all things.”

He raised his hand. Sara rose from her knees and left the palace, stunned.

King? The doors clicked behind her.

Sara walked, silently, along the gilded collonade outside the palace. Winds blew across it through the high arches, scattering leaves. Flames whipped in their wrought-iron caskets and cast orange phantoms of light about the dark floors of the citadel. The man just before her was king and had taken her from that realm. Was he a king then? When did she meet the king?

The Liason stepped infront of her.

“We meet on better terms, my lady.” He said, dipping his head cordially.

“Yes?” She replied. Like the man’s eyes upon the throne, this man’s face looked familiar to her and brought memories with it. She did not know why he bowed his head to her. She did not remember such an action from him before. She dipped her head, as well. 

“What do I call you?”

The Liason exhaled.

“You may now call me Swift, if you prefer. Though I prefer you continue to call me ‘Liason.’ Though it doesn’t matter what the hell I think.”

The Liason adjusted his tan robe, proudly.

She looked at his eyes. She remembered his face and could not recall any cruetly associated with it.

“I believe I remember you, kind sir. We are well-met.” She nodded and walked past him. The Liason held his arm out for her to follow him the other way.

“His majesty…” he said, expecting her to catch his meaning.

Sara looked at him, curious. “His majesty, yes?”

The Liason looked around the collonade. He flicked his hand, impatiently.

“His majesty’s….chambers.” He whispered harshly at her, embarassed for making him say it aloud. They had gone through this before, had they not? “His express command is for you to be there at once.”

“Why?” Sara asked.

Swift stared at her. “I beg your pardon.”

“Why?”

He drew nearer to her but kept a respectful distance. He crossed his arms.

“Because the King commands it.”

“And?” Sara asked, innocent. “What matter is that to me?” She had just seen him on the throne.

Her reply baffled Swift so much that his expression firmed into a hard dead-pan.

“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps you’d like another trip to the Keep to remind you of what happens when you cross the Asgardians?”

That thought, indeed, turned her blood to ice. Sensing she was defying his request, Swift shoved up the sleeve of his robe and presented his forearm to her. Above the silver band on his wrist, several red lashes welted and bruised across his flesh. The blood still oozed from a few of the scabs. They were fresh.

Sara winced at the sight of his wounds.

Watching her recoil from his arm, he hurriedly spoke.

“You have been trouble to me since you first arrived. Have a look, m’lady. This is what happens when you displease an Asgardian. You do not want to see my back. This, believe me, was quite merciful.”

“Who did that?” Sara asked.

The Liason slid the sleeve back down.

“Let’s just say, a very displeased god.” The Liason focused on smoothing the wrinkles from his sleeve. “I was dragged out of bed at dawn and he flogged me till he was half out of his mind. If the Queen had not called him to Odin’s chamber, I would not be standing here right now, dealing with your insolence.” The Liason sniffed and looked out over the soft-coming nighttime settling now on the lightly-rustling flowers along the colonnade.

“Why?” Sara asked, her voice soft but aghast.

“I failed a duty.” The Liason stated. “Would you like to see what happenes if I fail mine again?”

“Of course I will come.” Sara nodded, sympathetically. She didn’t wish him to suffer. “You wish me to follow you to the King’s chambers. I will do so at once.”

“I wish only what the King desires. This way.”

Sara followed the Liason and once they came to the long servants path that forked and led in different directions toward the Odinson towers, she found her memories return. She’d tread the path so many times. Even in the falling night, where she couldn’t see well, she recognized the stacked and thatched-roof servant cottages, the arches and doors of the tower kitchens – all clustered around a small courtyard with a garden and a tree in its center. She couldn’t remember the thoughts she once had as she tread these paths, but she knew the sight of them well enough.

The Liason escorted her through the wide-mouth of the entrance to Loki’s towers. As they took the stairs, the heights shifted around her, the air danced with currents of magic. Though dark, the towers pulsed with life, quicksilver energy and bold flames. She remembered it, too. When they reached the ornate doors to Loki’s chamber, though, she saw something new. The imposing guards had their spears crossed across the doors to his chamber. The Liason spoke to them and, without a word, they uncrossed.

Swift waited for Sara to enter the chamber, before he took his exit down the hall.

Sara drew into his chamber, transfixed by a fire that pulsed wild and high at the other end. She ignored the high ceilings, the bed, the massive chair, and the mounds of books. She walked straight to the dancing flames. She watched them for some time while they popped, flickered and licked the air wildly in the long hearth. The flames brought memories with them. The air between her legs grow hot, her breath drew shallow. Sara convulsed and braced herself on the chair as a sharp pain shot through her spine. Right behind it, galloped pleasure….and warm skin….and an image of the man who looked like the king, his veins pulsing along his neck as he grunted above her.

Startled at the memory, Sara sank her head further and steadied herself on the chair. Arousal fired up her loins and she ran her hand down between her sex and shut her eyes, collecting herself against the ferocity of this memory as it returned.

Just then, the doors flew open. She whipped to a formal stand as the young king strode in, removed his golden head piece, tossed it upon the air where it vanished in a flicker of gold light.

Seeing her, his regal scowl vanished. His eyes blue, his face delicate, he approached her. Unsure, she lowered her head. Then, she kneeled.

He held out his hand to rise her.

“When we are alone, you have no need for that. I know where your loyalty lies now.”

Loki drew close and held her face in his hands, studying her features. In silence, he looked at her. He looked at her for so long that one side of her body grew hot from the fire. She did not want to turn her head, though. She did not want his hands to leave her. She did not know why this was.

The silence broke open under his voice when he spoke. It was such a familiar voice that Sara stood captivated by it, frozen still between his hands, watching his lips.

“The dark land is still underneath your eyes.” Loki traced a thumb over her cheek. “Are you here?”

“Yes.”

“If I looked upon your face when you were in Shadow, you would have slipped away and remained forever.” He whispered, his voice soft with relief. “There are bargains in Hel that even Gungnir cannot break.”

These words conjured dark images in her mind. She tasted dust in her mouth. She swallowed and closed her eyes. His voice intoxicated her.

“I am glad that I waited to look upon you.” Loki said, trying to catch her eyes to look back up at him. Slowly, she did. His mouth was sorcery – a thin dash brimming with music.

His lower lip shivered as his breathing came shallow and unsteady, looking upon her face, enraptured by the spectacle. As though if he spoke too loud, she’d vanish. “…..do you know me?”

“Yes, your…majesty.” Sara said. She felt her body drawing away from the power of his gaze, the dominion of his voice on her mind. Everything inside was too gentle for this. She collected herself. “You took me from the dark lands. I thank you.”

Loki pulled her in closer to him, so close that her lips hovered over the crescent of gold that draped from his neck. Loki glided his hand from her neck to her shoulder.

“Is that all you remember?”

Unsure what she would say or should say, she thought of the image she saw by these flames just a moment ago and hesitated before answering.

Over her head, Loki smiled as he slithered his hand along the front of her robes and lingered just over her sex. Sara closed her eyes and gasped from the blast of arousal that shocked through her body at his touch.

“I – um, your maje…yes,” she stammered, breathlessly, stepping back from him. But it was a ‘yes,’ to his hand, not her memory.

What was this feeling he ignited in her limbs, in her skin, in between her legs? It was a tremendous feeling – beyond light, and voices, and new life.

“Hm.”

He dropped his hand which lingered in mid-air where Sara had left it. He stepped back from her and tilted his head, studying her as though she were a surprise box about ready to delight him.

“Undress yourself.” Loki said.

“My—your majesty?” Sara’s hands instinctively went up to the hem of her robe, protective. “I – thank you for saving me but, I – ”

“Hm.” Loki sank into the chair and draped a leg over its side. He stared up at her and slithered his finger back and forth across his lips.

“Is it as bad as that?” Loki flicked his hand into the air, curled it into a fist and pressed his mouth against it as he studied the flames, confounded.

“I am most grateful, your majesty.” Sara said, looking down at the floor in apology. “I remember your face and am eternally in your debt.”

When she brought her eyes back to him, she saw him looking at her in astonishment. His brows curved upward, his mouth parted in disbelief. A smile tried to kindle on his face as he glanced uncertainly between the fire and her.

Taking his puzzled expression as cue she needed to embelish, Sara added. “I am your subject here in Asgard and –”

The half smile flew from his face.

“You are much more than that, Sara.” Loki said, with warning.

Sara.

She heard him whisper that name to her. In the edge of her mind, it reverberated. A pleading whisper, as soft as a child’s. Sara, stay. She looked behind her and around his chamber. She could not find the source of the voice.

“Was that you, your majesty?” she said.

Loki raised his eyebrows and playfully looked around him. “I hear nothing.”

“Are you playing tricks on me, your majesty?” Sara said, casting her eyes down before glancing back up at him.

“No, no…” Loki leaned forward on his elbows and grinned up at her. “The question before us is….are you playing a trick on me?”

For a split second, Sara caught a shadow cross his eyes – fierce, ugly, dangerous. For just a second, it betrayed the lightness of his boy-face.

Do not look into his eyes. They lay snares another voice said in her head…

It was followed by the boy-soft whisper, Sara…

Then, followed by her mother’s you are a child from very very far.

She put her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry, your majesty. I’m not well.”

His smile vanished and he stood up, pulling her to sit down. He braced himself on the long arms of the chair and looked down at her.

“Sara…”

A knock rattled the doors and Loki looked up.

“Your majesty!” a muffled voice called from beyond them.

“Leave!” Loki yelled toward the doors.

“Sara…” He knelt and closed his fingers around her hands. His eyes bore up into hers, eagerly. “You have gone very, very far…farther than any mortal. You walked in lands your kind are not meant to return from.”

“Then how have I returned?” Sara looked concertedly at him, then at the fire, worried now that perhaps she was but dreaming and drifting there still. The thought terrified her.

The knock came again. Loki ignored it. Sensing her terror, Loki gripped her hand tight and he spoke urgently. “The sentinels let me enter the Keep. I was given my father’s scepter. I conjured sorcery of the darkest kind to get to you and I reached you just in time. You had not gone too far. You had not entered Hel. I found you…but you were in the Shadow Realm.” Indicating Asgardians, Loki continued. “Even we do not venture there.”

“The Shadow Realm.” Sara repeated. She recalled the Yendil’s words from the healing room. “I died there?”

“No.” Loki’s face was stoic. “You are living. You are flesh now. You are not dead.” He said this firmly, urgently, almost as though to remind himself as well as her.

“I am flesh of what?”

“Of mortal. Mortal.”

“Mortal?” Sara asked.

“You are not a god. Or half a god. You are mortal.”

“I served your kingdom in the past, I understand. What kind of mortal am I, your majesty?”

At this, he hid a scoff. “Well, all mortals serve. There are mortals in many realms.”

He paused, then and slid his eyes to the fire and watched the flames for a few seconds before continuing on, his voice hesitant.

“You are from the Otherlands, the Seven Villages hidden near this realm. Do you remember your home?”

“Your majesty!” A knock came again and Loki held a finger up to her with a warning she was not to move. He hurried out of the chambers.

Sara stood up.

She looked out the high windows and traced her fingers over the curtains. They twinkled like stars under her nails. She remembered these. She touched the dark pane of glass. It prickled cold against her fingers. An image flashed before her mind of the king, trembling and broken, his skin blue as ice, his eyes blood red. Sara closed her eyes, letting the memory take a new grip, like all the others returning.

Within moments, Loki returned. He stood behind her and wrapped his long arm around her waist. He whispered in her ear.

“Do you mean to tell me you do not remember me, Sara?”

A boy whispered from beyond the window Sara…

Sara turned to him. Loki loosened his arm as she did for her movement surprised him a little.

“Loki.” She said.

Hope hesitated on the brim of his eyes. Cautiously, Loki lowered his head to kiss her. He drew her waist close to him. He pressed his lips upon hers and images flew past her closed eyes – too fast to decipher. A raven upon her soft flesh, stars spinning under her toes, his green eyes upon her in the bath, his image smiling at her in a mirror...

Loki gripped her tighter, kissed her harder and his breathing turned hot and desperate into her mouth. He pressed her up against the window, burrowing her deep into the curtains. She met his mouth kiss for kiss, her hands bracing lightly upon his armored fore-arms. Under the steel of his lips and his hands on her, all memories of him reeled back. His laughter as he seized her in the gardens, his lips upon her forehead gazing down from a high window.

“Loki.” She whispered again, remembering him, as he kissed down the length of her neck.

Loki kissed her greedily and with what strength she had, she sighed his name whenever his lips drew away. The sound of his name galvanized him to a fever. Whether his tongue mined her mouth, or his lips grazed her neck, he growled each time he heard her say it. She ghosted her hands down the metal sidings of his leather suit, hard against her soft fingers. Under his armor, his ribs heaved wildly. She could tell he was holding himself back from tearing off her robe.

“On the bed.” He said, his breath ragged. “Now.”

Instead of waiting for her to walk to it (for she was slow), Loki grabbed her hand (“Do not let go of my hand, Sara”…the dark country closed in around her and the moon burned her eyes). They moved down together onto his bed – a massive divan, dark and carven with the bas-reliefs of ravens, beasts; cloaked in dark furs and emerald coverings. She had seen this bed, but never touched it, never felt it beneath her.

Looking into her eyes, Loki interlocked his fingers into her hand and pressed it firmly back over her head and pressed her body down under his.

“Please, your majesty…” Sara sighed. “Please be gentle. I am…”

Loki slipped his free hand under her robe and opened it, feasting on her soft torso, alive and heaving with breath and responding to his touches once again.

“…quite weak, still.” Sara gasped, in arousal. Between her legs, there was fire and wetness. The two extremes baffled her. Loki ran his large hand over her breast and bared it before his mouth. His eyes glinted. He looked as though he would strike down upon it. She bit her lip and braced herself. Thoughtfully, he blinked his eyes and kissed it tenderly.

No shots of hot-iron, no agony met his lips this time as he grazed her skin. Grateful for this, Loki kissed her ribs, her navel. He ran his hand over her other breast and held it between his fingers. He wanted to burrow his teeth upon it.

“I went a long way for this.” Loki whispered.

“Loki.” Sara sighed again, weaving her fingers up through the damp forest of his dark hair. He growled at the sound of his name and she panted for air as Loki gently swallowed her breast into his mouth and grazed his bottom teeth up its flesh as he drew his head up. He pushed her arm deeper down under his hand and Sara arched her body up to meet his.

With her free hand, Sara opened her robe entirely so that her skin could meet his. But it met with the hardness of his suit, its stiff leather squeezing between her bare legs; it’s metal cold against her bare skin.

“You want to be bare, my creature.” Loki smiled, amused as she struggled to work her robe off from under his weight.

Loki closed his eyes, concentrated and her robe, and his suit, vanished from between their bodies. They were bare as joined animals in the wild. Upon his bed, they tussled into eachother, kissing heavily and joining breaths.

“Spread your legs.” Loki whispered in her ear.

Sara moved her legs apart.

Sara watched relief flood over Loki’s face as he slid into her. His mouth parted, and his body shuddered, as though he had carried the energy of a thousand stars and it could finally now, in her body, leave him. A helpless, hungry moan escaped Loki as he slid deeper inside of her.

She ghosted her hands up his writhing torso as the enormity of him stretched her insides apart. She was almost to the point of pain, of crying out for him to stop when he thrusted back in and pleasure fired up inside of her, where he burrowed relentlessly.

Loki moaned into her mouth when she spread her legs farther apart for him while he rocked into her.

She fought for air, as her head rose and fell between the palms of his hands. Loki bore his eyes down onto hers as he thrust in and out of her, panting over her mouth.

“Do you know me now.” He demanded.

“Master…”

“Yes…” he growled.

~~

In Loki’s arms, Sara lay awake. She had never seen him rest. Faint clouds of frost left his lips as he exhaled. Upon his closed eyes, long black lashes reached toward his delicate mouth which rested closed and still. He looked at peace, though sometimes he mumbled inaudibly and his brows flinched toward each other, disturbed. Similar to mortals, the god’s eyes darted under his lids while he dreamt and Sara wondered what his dreams showed him. If they showed him the same visions they showed mortals in the deep chasm of sleep. She was afraid of her own dreams tonight.

She stayed awake – wide awake – as thoughts, too big in number to count, danced about in her mind. The Shadow realm had took something from her, that was clear, and her mother’s blessing placed something in its stead. She felt newly-born, yet restored to parts of her old self – her memories only. Her master brought her own memories of him back to her with a vengeance.

Lying there, Sara searched for her old feelings about her life and found only sensations. She searched for the thoughts and behaviors of the girl who scrubbed the floors and did the bidding of her master, but she could only find little, faint sketches of them upon her heart.

She did not want to close her eyes for fear that the dark lands waited for her on the other side of her lids. She feared that one slip into sleep and she’d be back there in the land of pale hands and the voices of the dead whispering upon the trees. She stared up into the high ceiling. It flickered in the orange light of the fire-hearth. She wondered if it was ancient fire. It never went out. It never died. It never dwindled. It burned constant.

She shifted her head upon his chest and, reflexively, Loki’s arm tightened around her.

“Why do you not sleep?” Loki’s voice broke the silence of the dark. His eyes were still closed.

I do not want to return to that country of frozen rivers and pale hands and the following shadow, she thought. Before she could speak it, Loki muttered softly, his eyes still closed.

“So long as I am here, you will not return there. Rest.”

He curled her tighter into his arm and exhaled himself into sleep once again. 

~~~

High over the glittering kingdom, the white peaks of mountains pierce the night. On the tallest peak, the very tallest, a statue stands with arm raised high, its orbs of eyes stone-still and looking out upon the Eternal Realm. It’s a lofty statue, cast in bronze. Flurries of snow howl across it, gather on its limbs and pool in the crooks of its gaping mouth.

Dangling in the snowy winds, a plaque hangs from its neck. Bordered in runes, the inscription is messy, it’s carvings crafted by a wild, unsteady hand. It reads:

“All hail, Sveinn! The highest man in Asgard.”


	7. Tales from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few hours later…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline to Thor (film): This chapter covers the first couple days after Loki’s made king, meets with Lady Sif & the Warriors 3 and it ends before the scene where he goes to Midgard/Jotunheim.
> 
> Note: This chapter follows the Deleted Scene Version of Thor where Frigga gives Loki Gungnir in Odin’s chamber and then the Warriors 3/Lady Sif visit him later.

TALES FROM ASGARD - CHAPTER SEVEN

Dawn crept up the gilded spires of Odin’s palace. But it’s new king was not in its vast halls of dying fire light and guards pacing quiet. A short distance from the citadel, the gray light of dawn touched the edge of the long, dark window of Loki’s tower.

He looked out over what was now his kingdom. Sara opened her eyes and saw him there, contemplating, with one arm draped across his waist, his other elbow resting upon it, his fingers moving slow like a sea anemone while he drifted in his thoughts. A sense of hope kindled in his face as he reflected upon the things he could do now.

“It’s been but a few hours, your majesty, will you not return to bed?”

“I have need of rest no longer.” Loki said, not breaking his train of thought. He gazed beyond the window as though the most important answers were out there and he need only find them with his sight. “Besides….your kind tend to expire under even the lightest of toil. You need far more rest than we do.” With a smug smile, he glanced at her.

“I’ve always risen before the sun, your majesty.” She smiled. She pulled her robe-gown from the floor, slid it over her sweetly-sore limbs and went to him.

“Did I have permission to leave the bed?” She whispered, playfully, touching his back. “Do I have permission to leave your chamber?”

Still resting his elbow upon his arm, Loki lowered his hand to stroke her face. He looked down at her. Sara pressed his palm closer to her cheek and kissed it.

Loki playfully whispered back. “Do you crave to be held my prisoner?” Looking at her, his eyes turned sad at the thought. “I detest a cage. There is nothing worse.”

“If it was of your making, I would not mind one.” With a teasing look, Sara ghosted her hand down his armor and over the leather mound between his legs. Loki’s lips parted as he shot his eyes down to her hand, then back up to her.

“I have been your toy, your majesty.” Sara continued, stroking it lightly. “That’s my duty here, I see.”

“I do not go to the edge of Hel to find my lost toys.” Loki challenged with a smile.

Sara rose up, put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Ravenously. It rushed through her, this affection, this craze in her blood for him, unchecked and unguarded. She could not imagine living without it. What else could make blood pump? What else could feel as good? How had she spent even a day having never felt this?

Loki took her head between his hands and returned her kiss with more fervor. For a long time, the chamber’s quiet was filled by the sound of their labored breathing, their lips meeting and breaking apart. Inhaling loudly, Loki scooped his arm into the slit of her robe and pulled her closer into him. Then, he stopped.

“They took you from me.” Loki said, quiet, his thumbs grazing across her cheek bones, his eyes slowly taking in the features of her face as though he may forget them again. “To that vile place – immune to magic – locked away from me.” He looked disgusted and terrified at the thought of such a place. “My father’s blessing must’ve made my skin Asgardian, my blood his blood. He controls all the powers in the Realm, even my own, even that place, and when he fell to sleep, I thought…”

His expression grew disturbed, the peace leaving his mood. Sara softened her voice and traced her fingers down his face. His skin had already turned clammy at his troubled thoughts.

“I will not stray far again, my lord.” Sara said. To cheer him up, Sara ran her hands into his hands and spoke soft. “You are king now.” The optimism in her tone did not pierce his gloom. She went on. “When your father wakes, whether it be years or days, he will be proud to see how well you’ve ruled in his absence.”

Loki stared darkly out the window. She was not sure if he even heard her.

Finally, he said quietly to himself more than her. “I should like to make him proud.”

Sara leaned her head against his chest, looked out the window and let him to his thoughts. She saw a sparkle of sunlight hit the bi-frost far in the distance. She pulled back a little and looked to him. “What shall I do here, your majesty? What is required of me?”

Loki gripped her fingers and pulled them back to his chest.

“You’ve already given me what I require most.” Loki said.

“And what is that, your majesty?”

A touch of rascal spread into his grin, though his eyes shone blue and raw in the ashen light of dawn. He tightened his grip.

“That, my creature, I will never tell you.”

Playfully, he pushed her back from him, whipped away from her and buoyantly walked toward the bed, practically strutting toward it. Sara giggled as Loki swiped the scepter, Gungnir, from his pillows, tossed it up with one hand and, smiling, caught in the other.

He then pointed it at her and came toward her, grinning.

With the point of it, he flicked open her robe and it’s sharp tip lightly depressed the flesh of her navel. Sara glanced down at it, then up at him.

“I thought I had been pardoned, your majesty.” She smiled.

Brows lowered, Loki looked at her with a devil’s expression, a row of teeth bared, and though Sara knew he was but acting, she shifted a bit in her stance. Just a little.

Loki then snapped the expression off his face. His eyes opened bright and he smiled at her, amiably. He raised the staff aright, leaned his weight on it and tilted himself forward.

“While my father sleeps, I have many duties.” Loki said, a hint of pride brimming behind his eyes. Then, theatrically, as though they were strangers, Loki continued. “A king’s pardon will take you far, Sara. You are citizen of Asgard now. I’ve declared it. You no longer need tread carefully between your labors. Do as you wish.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Sara teased.

“But you will return to my chamber every night.”

“With pleasure, your majesty.” Sara laughed light and soft, nodding her head to the new king.

“If you desire, the lady’s maids may tend to you. In the Lady’s baths.” He looked amused. “They are within the Healing Room, down the hall of the Ladies court. To the right.”

“You know the place well, your majesty.” Sara teased.

Loki laughed to himself, his eyes cast down in delicious memories of his frequent spying there. “Let us say, I relish…the view.”

Sara laughed and dipped her head.

A door, glowing blue, materialized in the wall behind him.

Loki came to her and cupped her neck into his palm. “It will give your king pleasure to know you are naked under the water, touching yourself while you think of me.”

Sara sighed as the heat between her thighs ignited. She ached her lips toward him.

Teasingly, Loki moved to kiss her but did not. He winked at her as he walked toward the secret door.

“What of Anaztazia?” Sara said, snapping out of her ectasy. “I do not trust her, my lord.”

Loki smiled as the door closed across him. “She will bother you no longer.”

~~~~

Gently, Sara opened the door to the hut. It was quiet and the scent of Maddy’s fresh breads still lingered in the dusty air. A few cinders died slowly in the hearth. She looked around the dwelling – a kitchen, a living room and Maddy’s sleeping cot all in one space, her own room up in the attic, the windows cracked open and facing in the direction of the sea.

It’s familiarity made her smile, though she felt oddly unwelcome, as though she were intruding.

“Maddy?” she called out and didn’t expect an answer, for Maddy would normally be in the markets in the morning since their master did not break his fast till the late evening. Of all the royals, Loki had the leanest appetite. For food, at least.

Sara picked up Maddy’s yellow blanket from the floor, folded it and tossed it on her cot. To her surprise, she heard Maddy clang out of the side-door of the tower kitchens, barking at the newly-appointed servants – Sara’s replacements.

“— I don’t care if you cooked with Andhrímnir himself, you don’ use ember-rose in my kitchens! Now if I –”

Maddy stopped mid-rant when she spotted Sara in the doorway of their hut, looking at her.

“Well, I’ll be!” Maddy cried out. Her squinty eyes opened bright as the yellow flowers in the basket that dangled from her elbow.

Sara rushed across the small courtyard of the servant’s garden, where the tall tree stood – now gnarled at the trunk and brimming with brand-new leaves, the colors of lavender, out of their season. They rustled wildly as Sara passed under them though no breezes blew. Sara thought for a moment that the crackling leaves carried voices. The sound reminded her of the shadow realm. Before that dreadful thought could get a grip on her, she had neared Maddy and put it from her mind. 

She found her arms opening to hug her but Maddy shooed her off, chuckling. “No need, no need for any of that nonsense.”

“Maddy.” Sara could only say as every memory of Maddy came back with the ease of sunrise. No potions needed to remember her face for it merilly squinted up at her and she knew she was friend. Like the smallness of their cottage, Maddy’s face seemed more worn and frail than Sara remembered.

“Good to see you back t’ the land o’ the living!” Maddy said. “These last days, I heards such strange-tell from those pea-hens in there.” Maddy looked disapprovingly back toward the kitchens, where the banging of pans and chattering voices had gone suspiciously silent.

“They said you was thrown into the dungeons! And I thought, ‘Poor ole girl. Naught a bite of bread to keep you company.’ Did they torture you n’ all?”

Sara lied and nodded her head ‘no.’ There was no need to share the torments.

A few heads popped out of the archway of the tower kitchens. Seeing the traitorous servant alive and well, their eyes got cheerful with the sweet rapture of something new to gossip about. The rumors around Thor’s banishment had began to dwindle into absurd terrority and the tower servants were eager for fresh news. The story that Lord Thor had been exiled from Asgard for impregnating a horse was holding no ground anymore. Especially for his tower maids who believed that, surely, no Odinson was capable of such a thing.

Maddy gaped at Sara’s robes and Sara looked down at them, apologetically. She felt foolish. Indeed her robe-gown of dark green silk, belted in with gold bands and jaded black embrodiery looked grand and ridiculous next to Maddy’s servant garb – the garb Sara had once worn.

“They made you Citizen.” Maddy said in awe and without a single trace of envy. “Praise Odin, tsk, that’s an honor. Well, Lady Sara – make yourself useful and take this.” Maddy smashed the basket of flowers into Sara’s hands, making it clear she wanted to speak no more of it. Sara took the basket, smiling, and followed Maddy into the kitchens.

That morning, the ovens burned but did not roar for the massive meals of the day were no longer needed in as high an order as normal. Listening to their chatter, Sara realized the servants did not know why their preparations were halved. Sara knew that the King had fallen into Odinsleep, but she said nothing. She observed the cooks and servants quietly as they bustled around her and ignored her presence. Sara would have done the same if a lady-citizen had been in her presence.

It felt strange – standing there, with nothing to do. So strange that she wanted to leave. She went to find Maddy, to tell her that she’d be taking a walk. She sensed there was someone she needed to see, someone she knew but need only to see them to remember them – much like Maddy. She could not quite place it.

Sara found her passed out in the wine cellar.

Legs akimbo, chin on her chest, and a gigantic jug of purple wine under her arm, Maddy snored. Shaking her head, Sara sighed at the sight.

“It is far too early for this Maddy.” She knelt down and nudged her shoulder. Maddy snorted loudly. “I am gone, what, but two days and you have given yourself entirely to drink!”

Amused, Sara awaited a response from her, but Maddy just slurred inaudibly. Sara sighed, stood up and clasped her hands together.

“The horsemen! They’re coming. The hunt!” Maddy called out, her eyes closed tight and flinching.

“Mad –”

“…The dogs! And the prey!” Maddy mumbled, louder. “They gallop swift…”

“Ah, I see, yes.” Sara humored, giggling at her.

Maddy’s eyes then flew open and she cried out.

“Do you not see them? They bring a wave of darkness….covering all….”

Sara stopped laughing. She drew back, concerned. These were dark ramblings, indeed. Cautiously, Sara pried Maddy’s arm from off the jug and noticed the lid was still upon it good and tight. She wrangled Maddy from out the cellar door, careful to not let the new servants see her.

She took the rose-lined back-path to their hut, carrying Maddy’s weight as she rambled on about a wild hunt, a dark hunt, trampling into Asgard, into Midgard, into all the worlds.

Sara soon got Maddy into their cottage and upon her cot. She straightened her legs and soothed her fevered ramblings as she always did when Maddy drank and muttered nonsense like this. But these ramblings un-nerved Sara. She wondered if emerging from the shadowlands – a place where mortals were not meant to return from, as her master stated – may have left her more sensitive. For the shadowlands seemed to linger underneath the surface of every thought she had upon leaving Loki’s presence. Shuddering a little from the cold, Sara pushed it from her mind and pulled shut the window of their hut, catching a puff of the salty, magic-tinged sea air.

Sliding the yellow blanket over Maddy, Sara spotted a little girl in the servant garden. She carried an urn full of bronze fruits. She was staring, curiously, up at the tree. Seeing she was idle enough, Sara went out to her. The winds picked up, scattering tiny pecks of lavender-colored leaves from the tree’s branches.

She asked the little girl, kindly, to fetch the Liason. The girl nodded, obediently, but before scampering off, she turned back to Sara.

“Are you Loki’s concubine?” she asked.

Scandalized, Sara turned back to her. She was but a girl, only ten – a good many years younger than herself, who never knew such a word at that age.

Trying to sound stern, Sara answered. “I think you mean ‘His majesty’, did you not? Make haste, young lady. Please find the Liason.”

The girl’s face opened in surprise and she hurried off.

Swift arrived in lightning-speed. In fact, at being beckoned on Sara’s behalf, he’d hurried so quickly that he smacked his head on the low beam of their hut as he entered it. He brushed it off and looked around, coolly.

“Liason.” Sara said.

“My lady.” The Liason said, stiffly. “You beckoned me.”

Maddy called out again, drunkenly, about horsemen and second darknesses and huntsmen. Pressing a cold rag upon her head, Sara looked apologetically at the Liason. A dark, discontent flashed across his blank eyes as he looked in the direction of Maddy’s cot. Sara got the feeling he did not like what she was saying either.

“Is there a way we can reprieve Maddy of her duties? I fear her work is too much she is quite ill with drink. She cannot stop, it seems.”

“That’s the ways of the hill-folk, they always drink!” The little girl squealed from the door, having lingered there behind the Liason to spy. The Liason frowned down at her and shooed her off with his hand.

“She has coped quite well with her virus.” The Liason said, calm. “She serves well and true and it’s a common condition. I see no need to relieve her of service for it. Not all can ascend to citizenship with the speed and ease with which you have, m’lady.”

Had anyone else said these words, Sara would’ve sensed hostility. But the Liason stared at her bemused. He meant it as mere matter of facts.

“Virus, my lord?” Sara laughed. “Is chronic drunken-ness a virus?” Half of the gods they’d served at the tables must therefore be wretchedly ill.

The Liason looked confused.

“I apologize. I thought you knew, m’lady.”

“Knew what, my lord? What is this virus?”

“It is not my place to speak of servant affairs with…” Swift looked a little too smug for Sara’s liking. “…citizens.”

Sara understood his meaning. He’d like to hold onto his powers of information, even if it meant depriving her.

“Well, I will let the king know of your…fidelity to secrecy.” Sara said, loading her words carefully. The Liason swallowed hard and blinked.

“If it pleases you, m’lady. It’s an easy fix. I can appoint the finest Sorelium healer to come for her and there will be no need to inform the king of…my fidelity.”

The influx of power startled her. She only meant to pry more from him, not this. She’d heard of the Sorelium – a hidden realm of healing that nestled in the distant stars. They were for gods. It sounded worthy for Maddy. Whatever it was she battled, Maddy deserved this kind of gift. On her behalf, Sara nodded in the affirmative.

As a citizen, this was the least she could do. 

“Please do. It would please me.”

~~~~

Sunlight beamed through the golden rafters of the vaulted roof, open to the sky and wrapped in blossoms. The lady-maids chatted as they bathed Sara and took turns picking up a lyre to sing songs. Sara did not know any songs of Asgard – indeed she rarely heard them in the servants’ quarters since most of them sang songs from their own different, indigenous lands. She did not want to ask them to sing of the Otherland, for it broke her heart to think of it.

Bedecked in fine gowns of gold, hair piled high, high-born Asgardian ladies drifted to and fro along the colonnade that looked out upon the glistening rivers, the cliff sides beyond lined with silver, the rainbow bridge, glittering bright, even in the sunlight, as it ran straight underneath their balconies; or they reclined in the deep-baths cut down into the shining floors. Rose-scented steam lifted and broke apart in the open airs that blew in through the arches which looked out upon the gilded edifices of Asgard, shining bright in the new sun.

Sara found it strange to be doted upon, to have her limbs anointed, her own hair washed for her. The lady-maids who revived her the day before tended to her now in casual and sweet reverence. They neither hurried or worked silently as the tower-servants did. As she once did.

The sound of their sing-song voices, even when they delved to gossip, livened her mood for it kept dark, wandering thoughts at bay. These kind of thoughts were new to her. She had never felt her mood and mind drift to such dark places so easily before. Even when they sung of wars and hunts, the songs of Asgard still sounded sweeter to her ears than her thoughts did.

Joining in to their talk, Sara asked if they knew of Maddy’s virus. They, of course, did not mingle with kitchen or tower servants and could not decide between them if they knew Maddy at all.

Gedr, the Yendil, shrugged a lean shoulder and replied. “She has the name of a Hill-woman. If she’s from there, ‘tis like to be star-sickness. That’s what our kind call it.”

“ ‘Star-sickness.’ ” said Hekr, the girl with an excited voice. She rolled her eyes and worked a salted scrub between Sara’s thighs. They ached from Loki’s hips the night before. Although he’d been tender, and she had new strength, she still winced when the girl’s hands kneaded between her legs. Sara did not know she could tell her to stop, so she beared the discomfort and hung on to their words. “Our people call it the virus of Gnosis. It means ‘knowledge’ in our tongue.”

“Well, in your tongue or not, it’s a common malady.” Gedr chided Hekr. “On occasion, Hel has been known to come on the back of a star-sickness and take the sufferer back with her.”

The mention of ‘Hel’ turned Sara’s blood cold. She saw the bone-walls of the mansions looming high and empty in the abysmal dark.

Taking her silence for rapture, and proud to be more informed than her company, Gedr continued. “If this Maddy you speak of grew up in the hills, she lived where the three mighty rivers kiss. They are fed by the Asgardian sea and, well, living by those rivers for one day is a day too long, I say.”

Sara had never heard of such a thing. Could think of nothing in Maddy to suggest she was sick – other than the usual coughs and fevers that come from working all evening and day.

“But why would that make her sick? I thought the rivers of Asgard restore.” Sara asked, growing more worried. Goodness, she was sitting in a bath full of Asgardian water.

Gedr saw Sara’s neck tense. Amused, she wrung out the rag and handed it to Hekr, motioning for her to hang it out on the balcony.

“All these waters carry the might of the Bi-frost. All it’s secrets and it’s powers beyond reckoning.” Gedr slid her fingers down Sara’s back and poked her. Sara started. “These waters are mixed with mountain water, rain water, snow water. They are quite diluted. Your mind is quite safe.” She winked at her.

“But in the hills far beyond,” Gedr continued, “where the run off from the sea triples upon itself and feeds their rivers, well they are strong with knowledge, too strong. If Maddy be mortal – like you and me - too long exposure to those waters, well….tears a rip in your brain. Some it’s small. Some it’s large. It makes you sick with knowledge – past, future – it’s far too great than a simple, mortal mind can take. If she was raised hill-folk, she bathed in it, drank it, played in it. ‘Tis a shame.”

Sara baffled at this. “It eats your mind up?”

She herself felt sick at just the sound of the Asgardian waters rushing about her ears. It was the last thing she heard before entering the wretched Keep and it was the first thing she heard when she emerged. It damn near drove her out of her mind.

“Ay,” Gedr nodded, “You ever hear her talk funny?”

“When she’s taken to drink…” Sara said, “She’d go on about the oddest things…but really only then.” She stared at the bubbles on the surface of the water, watched them pop and vanish.

“Well, if that be the case, she’s one of the lucky one perhaps. It takes everyone down sooner or later. Except for the gods. They’re immune to it, of course.” Gedr said.

“They’re immune to everything,” Hekr sighed, dreamily while sauntering back to the baths She sat upon the sill, took up the lyre and began a song. With her sweet voice, she sang:

Much are you changed, children of Dáin

who spoke no words

brought forth no sound

From the east, from Elivágar

your tears shall flow

on ice-cold fells...

“Not to those things.” Gedr chuckled and pointed next to Hekr sitting on the alcove of the window.

Sara looked to see what Gedr meant and saw, glinting in the sunlight, laid out upon fresh linen, the beautiful, black slivers of ash that her mother had given her in the Shadow Realm. 

“Those are…flowers…” Sara said, trailing off, realizing how stupid she sounded. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Those aren’t flowers, my dear.” The Yendil’s dark eyes wisened on Sara’s face. “Those are blades of obsidian. They’re very rare. They can maim fire demon, pierce flesh of frost giant, poison the blood of god both elder and new.”

With a gush of water falling, Sara rushed from the tub, naked. Hekr dropped her lyre and hurried to robe her.

“By Odin…” Sara gasped to herself, grazing her fingers over the slivers. They looked frail but at the touch they were hard and smooth as blades. Their blackness shined brilliantly in the sun. She thought of her mother speaking in her head; her tenderness as she placed them in her hair, for protection in the land of no voices. She eyed them, fascinated.

I do not want to be in trouble again for some object I posess that I know not it’s danger, she thought to herself, Not again.

“Would it be treasonous to have these?” She looked to Gedr and Hekr.

“Nothing can hurt an Asgardian.” Hekr sighed, dreamily.

“Oh, shut up, girl, what do you know of it?” Gedr said.

“So, are these a threat to Asgard or not?” Sara said, holding the blades in her hands, looking at them both, eagerly. “Pray, tell me.”

“A threat to Asgardians?” Gedr laughed, as though Sara just suggested Asgard was not a real place. “They are blades of Obsidian, my lady, forged in the heat and dust of Hel. They are feared by Frost Giants. Even the fire demons of Muspelheim would tremble at the sight of them. An Asgardian would find himself lucky to come upon these. Indeed, it’s rare for a mortal to have them.”

Sara did not want anyone getting their hands on them. Her one remnant of her mother, her music box, had been seized and taken away – accused of posessing magic. She wanted no one to take this – her last gift, her most precious gift for it came with her blessing. She also did not want to bring trouble upon herself again.

Realizing that Gedr, the Yendil and Hekr, the girl with the excited voice, knew of her posessing these and the other woman, Bryn, was not there - Sara searched for a way to secure their discretion.

She put on a fake laugh. It felt awful to do. Un-natural. It was very difficult to lie, she found. She felt queasy.

“My master gave these to me…” Sara lied. If Loki, an Odinson, had given them to her, it would not be something a servant would mention idly. In particular, the king.

Hekr looked at her, reassuringly. “Of course King Loki would want you to have these, my lady.”

“Indeed, it’s good he gave them to you.” Gedr said. “For if those beasts ever enter Asgard again, while Odin sleeps and Lord Thor away, neither he or anyone could protect us.”

“Loki can protect this realm.” Sara said, firmly, to Gedr. “It is because of Lord Thor that we are at war with them at all.”

~~~~

The stone alcove looking down on the horse halls was meant for the horse-masters to come up and wash their hands before presenting the steeds of the Aesir.

The water-boys loitered around Sara, feeling rather helpless that a lady citizen was doing their job for them. Soil fell away from underneath her fingernails as she scrubbed them furiously in a well of spring water.

Working the dirt from her fingers, she looked down upon the galley of the majestic horses of the Aesir – all stomping, neighing and rustling in their gilded stalls. Save one. It rested it’s long head upon the ledge and remained still. It’s dark eyes blinking slow and sad. From it’s gold mane and snow-white coat, Sara recognized it as a horse she’d seen Thor ride. It was named Gullfaxi.

Sara inspected her hands. Rubbed raw, they were finally free of dirt. There were no traces that she’d been digging. She had no time to find tools, so she had to use her hands.

Earlier, Sara left Gedr and Hekr and rushed, freshly-bathed and oiled, from the Ladies palace. She went to her old hut and spent her first afternoon as a lady citizen digging in the garden while Maddy slept inside. Hunched over the tiny beds of flowers, it was the only way to appear to an onlooker: just a lady gardening, not a lady burying an ancient weapon from another realm.

When she heard Maddy stir awake inside and clambor around the kitchen, Sara picked up her pace. She rolled the blades back into their linen, and placed them down in the pit of fresh soil. She covered it up with softly packed dirt. This could buy her time until she found a better way to safekeep her mother’s gift.

She couldn’t enter Maddy’s hut with her hands caked in mud, for Maddy would surely notice. The kitchens bustled then with servants who would gossip about a lady who stormed in to wash her dirt-caked hands.

So, Sara headed to the nearest water-well, where only young boys tended, in the gilded quad of the horsemaster. She hurried across the servant’s garden. When she passed the tree with newly-sprouted violet leaves, she didn’t notice that high up between its sea of branches, scented in lavendar, an eye blinked. A quaint, little note was nailed into its trunk. Scribbled messily, it was barely discernible on the yellowing parchment. It read: Ugly things are born in the ground, not the stars.

Saying farewell to the stunned wash-boys, Sara hurried from the horse hall and took the walkway behind Odin’s citadel. Her status higher now, she could roam a hall like this freely.

Her peaceful thoughts broke for a moment when the doors from Odin’s palace clanged open with a bang. She turned and saw Lady Sif exiting the doors swiftly. The Warriors Three hurried behind her. Her beautiful face was dark with anger, her eyes set and burning ahead. Her armored feet pounded the floor as she stormed past Sara.

Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg soon followed. Sara looked out upon the view and caught their conversation as they breezed past her. Fandral, his handsome face scrunched up in incredulity, goaded Volstagg.

“ ‘If I may beg the indulgence.’ If I may beg the indulgence?…”

“What was I to say? Leave me be!” Volstagg huffed back. He looked at Hogun but Hogun only smirked and shook his head at him. “Besides, Fandral. I am hungry. Do you know how long it has been since I eaten last?”

Seeing Sara, a by-standing Lady, Fandral winked at her and nodded as he passed.

For a few moments, Sara lingered there, watching the view from the high citadel – a sky melding between a fresh dusk, the coming night and the dying morning. Stars peppered the pink sky over the sea and burned bright in the dark sky over the mountains. Asgard had a hundred skies.

Continuing on, she came to a balcony, draped in crimson banners. The cold breezes from the rivers rushed up in currents and chilled her arms. The metallic balustrade was hot from the sun and so she leaned on it, enjoying it’s warmth on her skin as she looked at the white foaming majesty of the waters, pounding loud under the cry of seagulls and children laughing upon the shores. From here, she could see the Otherlanders temple in the distance, standing like a lone finger of stone between glittering domes, above the gushing rivers. Beyond the towns, she spied the cliff dwellings. She looked out toward them. She could not remember where, but she knew a friend lived in its silver crags on high. Or at least she felt an old friend lived out there once – a rusty man, a paranoid man, but a kind man. She could not recall what happened to him. Indeed, she could hardly bring his name to mind.

She descended a spiral stair and felt a glimmer of Loki’s presence. She half-expected him to appear just then, but he didn’t. He must not have jested when he said he had new responsibilities for it’d been a whole day and he had not sprung out of nowhere to take her. At the base of the stairs, she turned a corner and her breath caught in her throat.

Ahead of her, a gallery stretched. Upon one black wall, massive panoramas sparkled within their frames. They were so large that Sara thought the hands of giants must’ve crafted them. Tremulously, Sara walked onward and rose her eyes to see the edges of the spectacles flickering and shifting above her view. Galaxies of the farthest reaches of space twirled from one side of the frame to the other before flicking to a new vision of a land full of bright meadows and fair-haired Elven-kind.

Amazed, Sara instinctively looked around to see if she were alone. For surely, this was a witchcraft of the highest making. How could anything this extraordinary reside here? If a locked box and a doll of wax could land her in a Keep for sorcerers, surely such magic as this would be outlawed. She’d never seen anything like it.

Looking ahead, she saw she wasn’t alone, for a man and a woman gingerly walked arm in arm, toward the far end of the gallery. They were in casual conversation with each other, barely noticing the transforming and wondrous displays.

Suddenly, the mural before her switched to a colorful land at sunset. Tall grasses rustled back and forth in the breeze; A sheet of white cloud slid across the background of red hills. She looked behind her to see what was projecting these wonders. There was nothing behind her but a black wall and it’s reflections.

When Sara turned back to the mural, she gasped aloud. An old man, with long silver hair stood in the sea of bilowing grasses and rose a hand up to her in greeting. She knew this greeting as close as she knew the sound of her own voice now. It was a high hand, palm open to the sun – a greeting from the Seven Villages. Hesitantly, Sara rose her hand back to the man. Surely, she knew him. She blinked and he vanished.

Moments passed as Sara gaped at the mural, wondering if her eyes had just decieved her; if all the murals had such strange people appearing and disappearing. She looked to her right and saw the couple lingering ahead, staring up at a display of a dark world with a lone mountain covered in low-hanging ash-colored clouds.

“How did I just know you would be taken with this?” Loki said, leaning over her shoulder.

She nearly jumped at the sound of his voice.

Loki stood with his arms behind his back, watching her with a quiet smile.

Remembering they were not alone in the gallery, Sara bowed her head and knelt low.

“Your majesty.” Sara said, rising. “This is a wonder. What is this?”

Loki gestured his eyes toward the mural before her.

“That is Midgard.”

“I see.” Sara said, shooting a nervous glance at it. There was no man there still. Knowingly, Loki smiled at her. She was not sure if he had seen the man there as well or not.

“What is this place, your majesty?” Sara asked, brightly. A little too brightly. “It’s beautiful. I think I should never want to leave it.”

Loki smiled shy-like, as though he were being thanked for his own personal creation and humbly taking credit for it.

“We do not name a wonder such as this.” He said. “But in some realms, it would be called a ‘museum.’ ” The mural now flickered over to the next dazzling spectacle – a spiral galaxy, full of stars and dust, turning and turning into itself.

His arms behind his back still, Loki looked between her and the grazing couple at the other end of the hall. His thin mouth wrinkled as he looked at the ground and waited for them to exit. They finally did.

“’Museum’,” Sara sounded out the word and seeing the new array of stars before her, she leaned forward, entranced. “I’ve seen this. I know I’ve seen this galaxy before…”

Loki came up from behind her and pulled her back into him. He whispered low into her neck. “Have you. You remember, then.”

“Yes, I know I’ve seen it….above my eyes, upon my bed when…”

Loki slid his other arm across her neck and Sara, shyly, broke off.

“Yes. I showed it to you.” He tightened his arms across her neck and waist, and growled softly in her ear. “When I broke you in.”

Remembering the ecstasy of that night – it felt ages ago, though it had only been days – Sara opened her lips for him to kiss her but instead of doing so, Loki smiled into the cave of her mouth.

“Come.” He said into it, taking her by the hand. “Come, look.”

They made their way up the gallery. Images both beautiful and terrible wavered into their view – strange lands, beautiful scenes, dark seas full of ships, nebulas exploding, stars birthing stars, waves of men in battle-gear colliding into each other on blood-crested shores…

“These…wonders, as you call them…” Loki said, raising his eyebrows playfully in her direction. “…are from all the realms. Between time and space they linger. Time does not obey itself between worlds, which is why these sights shift before our eyes.” His lips parted as he wondered up at the new mural that flickered above them, rising high. “That is why I have respect for time – it obeys no one.”

She followed Loki’s eyes.

“This one is my particular favorite.” He said.

Unlike a moving galaxy or a shimmering Midgard, the display was still. It’s images crawled across the wall but remained frozen. It depicted beasts dancing around a pagan fire that burned high toward the heavens. Their grotesque faces bathed in its red, furious light. Around their dance, Animal, Man, Woman, Tree all cavorted and twisted together in erotic chaos.

After a moment looking up at it, Loki smiled to himself, contemplatively. 

“Thor hated this place. My father took us all over Asgard when we were young; made us endure his many speeches. He would bring us here. I was always fond of it.”

The mural flickered again. Dark and oily, the images were hard for her to make out. A murky river shimmered in the foreground. In the middle, a wide tree stretched it’s long, dark branches out in all directions and the winter wind shook them. A god dangled from one of its boughs, his mouth bound with sackcloth.

Loki stared at it hard. She didn’t know what storm brewed inside of him.

It dawned on Sara just then. Loki had just spoken to her of his father. She remembered then that in the Keep of Sala, upon the Dais, she saw that Loki was of Jotun blood somehow. This meant, perhaps, that the sleeping King Odin was not his father, and thus, his kin not his kin. Sara’s eyes fell to her hands. She studied them as she searched for comforting words to say to him.

“That you prefered this place, even as a youth, shows your wisdom.”

Placatingly, Loki smiled to himself. Then, still smiling, his eyes flickered accusingly at her.

“I saw you looking out toward the cliffs. Were you looking for that old man?”

Taken back, Sara nearly stammered for words. The smile left his face.

“His name was Marckus if that assists your memory.” Loki added, his tone dangerous, his eyes clouding from blue to the darkest green.

Marckus. The name came with images that reeled memories of him quickly back into her mind. Tanned skin, friendly laugh, eccentric friend, a friend still.

“He was but a friend from my homeland, Loki. Nothing more.”

His lips rose up in a sneering laugh. “I do not accuse you of spreading your legs for that old wretch.” He looked down the length of her gown, lasciviously. “But do you grieve the loss of him? For I tell you this…” He clamped his hand upon her waist and leaned over her. “If that man sets foot in Asgard again, if I so much as see his face, I will have it flogged from his head and nailed upon the citadel. His foolish disappearing trick put you into danger.”

Sara wanted to defend Marckus (surely he had not intended those consequences) but Loki was so graphic in his threat, that it stunned her. The violence of it put protest from her mouth and she only nodded in the affirmative to him and prayed, silently, that Marckus indeed never showed up to meet such a fate as that.

Loki’s face softened then and he took her by the hand, led her from the gallery.

They came to a corridor, braced on one side by large pillars that opened out to the sky.

“Your majesty!”

He let go of Sara’s hand and, in an instant, Odin’s spear, Gungnir, flew into it. From out of thin air. Sara jumped as it wheeled past her. She fell behind as Loki paced ahead of her, up the royal corridor, careful to not look back at her and suggest that she may be more than a mere lady citizen, recently freed and in grateful conversation with the king.

Sara slowed her steps and watched two nobles hail Loki. They wore robes of heavy gold and white. They were bare of helmets and armor. They did not fall to their knees and cross their chests but rather gave Loki a long bow as he approached them.

When she drew nearer, she heard Loki’s voice clear above theirs.

“I have need of The Arm no longer. If it troubles you so much, Erlingr, why don’t you look for him yourself?” Loki asked, cooly.

“I will send a search party, your majesty. I am confident we can find him. He must not have strayed far.”

Loki laughed. “Oh, I have faith you will find him soon enough.”

This was met with more mumbles that Sara could not discern as she drew closer and gazed out at the pink sky and white clouds beyond.

Loki then asked in a clear, calm voice.

“Is my mother well?”

“She still keeps to Odin’s chamber but she is in good health, your majesty.”

Not wanting to eavesdrop, Sara did not pass them by but rather moved further away to observe a gold statue of a ram that stood out from the wall that ran along the other side of the corridor. Forged in dark bronze, its giant head loomed from the wall. Its long horns curved out and up toward the stars beyond; its face burned in the light of the torches and its eyes flared in power, its lowered brows determined to leave the confines of the wall.

The taller nobleman mumbled hurriedly and Loki interuppted him, his voice ringing clear and forceful down the empty hall.

“Only the Destroyer remains in the Vault, Erlingr. Remove the guards.”

“Your majesty, you cannot send the sacred guards from the Vault.”

“Why not?” Loki’s brows rushed together and he rose his chin to look down at him as though he’d suggested an absurdity. He gave an uneasy laugh to the both of them. “They just lurk about. What use were they against the Jotuns? The Destroyer is far superior to guards and I command it now.”

“Is that a good idea, your majesty?”

“You doubt the Destroyer’s power, Erlingr.” Loki said, in mock-offense. “Shall we test it?” Loki lifted Gugnir a little from the ground. Erlingr and Porgnyr cautiously rose their hands up and darted their eyes to the spear. Smiling, Loki looked between the two of them and, quickly, let the staff slide through his palm. In one fell swoop, the men cried out and Loki gripped the spear tight before its end tapped the floor, awaking the Destroyer.

He laughed. “Come, now, men. It’s only fun.” The nobles relaxed but shot uneasy glances to one another. Their voices lowered again.

Sara pretended to study the bronze statue though she was quietly amused.

In her peripheral vision, she saw Loki look in her direction. She snapped her gaze back to the ram. Then, she heard the word “box,” and “totem” mentioned. Careful not to look at them, Sara struggled to listen clearer. Within moments, it dawned on her that they were speaking of her music box and of Marckus’ wax doll that he’d given to her on the holy day.

Before she could stop it, she found herself striding toward them and speaking.

“That would be mine. My mother’s gift to me!” Sara said.

She had instantly regretted what she was doing but her mouth had kept moving.

“I should like to have that back…if it please the…” She did not know the royal titles “…assembly…and…uh…” She stammered off, for the look on the noblemen’s faces were horror-struck at her conduct around the King. Quickly, she glanced at Loki and there was no such dismay on his face but something far worse. His expression was downright murderous. He looked at her as though he didn’t even recognize her. “…and, the King, your majesty.”

Not knowing what else to do she bowed quickly, darted her eyes to the floor and backed away. Loki stared at her hard, the lower wrung of his teeth jutting out slightly as he did so. The men looked to him, then to eachother. After what felt a torturous length of time, Loki looked away from her and quietly replied to the pair.

“Keep the relics in the Vault.” Loki said. “Under the eye of the Destroyer.” He rose a finger to them to pause their exit. “As for the Warriors Three and Lady Sif. Deliver this message. Tell them it would benefit them greatly if they were to wait for my word. Say nothing else.”

Erlingr and Porgnyr bowed quickly to Loki and, as if they couldn’t leave quick enough, exited speedily through the pillars rather than the royal doors down the hall. Loki watched the pair leave. Once they were gone, he looked back at Sara, his face calm. Sara backed away as Loki approached her. She felt she would melt under his stare.

“Turn around.” Loki stated.

Hesitant, Sara slowly rotated from Loki and found herself staring into the nostril of the ram’s head. In her periphery, she saw Loki’s long, pale fingers grip the horns on either side of her head. She dared not move. She heard Loki breathe behind her, as though he were thinking.

For a long beat of silence, he did nothing.

Then, Loki bit her neck. Hard. So hard, she screamed. 

“Something in the Shadow Realm has made you bold.” Loki said. “Shall I have to tame you all over again? You, the only thing that has been truly mine?”

He kissed her shoulder, where the wound smarted, bled and stung under his cold lips.

“My apologies, your majesty. I did not mean – ”

“Face me.” Loki said.

Sara turned, shaken. She looked up at him and drew her head back as Loki rested his arms on the horns and leaned down to her.

“You’re trembling.” He slanted closer to her face, then whispered. “Why do you tremble?”

She cowered and could only stare up at him. He had murder in his eyes, though everything on his face was calm. She thought, Because you will kill me. But she would not say it for she would not believe it.

“I travelled far to keep you here.” Loki reminded her, as though she had forgotten this, as though he were offended. The sound of people passing by upon the stairs made Loki turn back toward the pillars quickly. In uncanny speed, his eyes scanned the hall before looking back to her. “Why do you tremble before me as though I am a monster?”

“I do not think – ” 

“Do you think I would end you just like that? I would never.” His eyebrows rose up again, pleadingly, his eyes watering.

Uncertainly, Sara nodded up into his gaze. Loki smiled.

She let out a breath and relaxed.

Loki’s expression then steeled. His teeth clenched in a grimace as he flipped Sara around and with the tall mass of his body boxed her tight against the ram’s head. The rough, bronzed surface of the ram’s mouth and nostril crushed against her neck, her collarbone, her breast and her ribs.

Loki yanked her hair back and snarled in her ear. “But I am your king.”

He pressed his leg between hers, released her hair and ripped the back of her gown wide open.

“Yes, your – ”

Loki gripped her hair again, pulling it back even harder till she winced in pain.

“No!” he yelled. He struck his palm hard against the soft flesh of her arse. “No…” Loki slid two fingers inside her, roughly, and said, “Call me your king.”

Though she feared for her life, she was wet around his long fingers.

“My—my king.” Sara whimpered. In a furious rhythm, Loki pounded his fingers into her, with no tenderness, as she fought to say the words he wanted to hear.

“I am sorry…my…king.”

It was too late, he was beyond placating. Riled and growling in frustration, he removed his fingers, undid himself and slammed himself inside of her.

He took her rough, right there, against the bronze head. Her cheeks burned red with shame for they were in a royal hall but a public one where anyone could pass. The leather of his pants pounded against the backs of her reddening thighs and the slaps of it meeting them echoed down the hall. With each thrust, Loki demanded her to say it.

“My king, please forgive me.”

In reply, he only grunted and quickened his pace, his hands grabbed her waist harder as he wildly set himself upon her. So hard that she felt her ribs would break under his fingers. The crumpled bronze of the ram’s head dug repeatedly against her cheek as he fucked her hard against it.

“Loki…” Sara finally managed to breath out. “I…am sorry.”

At the sound of his name, Loki slowed, then paused and receded from her. Panting, he suited himself back in and looked around him, dazed, his face pale and clammy from sweat. With shaking hands, Sara clasped her ripped skirt together.

Loki looked at her, bewildered. With himself or what happened, she could not tell.

“Sara,” he said, as he caught his breath., “I am – I do not know what, I – ” 

She covered up her torn skirt and peeked around to see if anyone had seen them, her face red with shame at the thought. At the moment, the hall stood empty and silent – save from her master’s heavy breathing.

Collecting himself, he said. “Please go to my chambers. But I will not be there tonight.” He started toward her, as though to kiss her, stopped himself and then hurried away.

~~~~

The next day, in a new gown, Sara fixed up the cottage while Maddy trembled in fevers on her cot barking at Sara to not burn the bread, to not be lazy with the webs and to get the ones in the corners, to sweep the stoop of its golddust with a steel-feather broom not a straw one. Maddy was exasperated at Sara’s uselessness. Sara laughed and took it all with a smile, fixing her soup and keeping cold rags on her head.

As evening drew near, Sara brought extra blankets for Maddy and they killed the sunset hours chatting about flour, the stew Sara just made (“It’s horse piss, girl.” Maddy frowned “But not bad, this.”), the floors she’s just cleaned – anything but the illness that turned Maddy’s face gray as a fog. Anytime Sara adjusted her pillow or mentioned it, Maddy switched the subject. Maddy occasionally glanced at the purple-black wound on Sara’s neck, but said nothing of it.

Sara sat with her and talked about other topics, though she had so few things to talk about. She did not want to tell Maddy or anyone, even herself, about the torments of the Keep, the howling emptiness of the Shadow Realm. So she told Maddy about the gallery in Odin’s citadel that displayed distant worlds (Maddy acted un-impressed but she kept asking her about it). She told her of what the Lady’s healing rooms looked like, how they played music (“They sound like a bunch of lazy hens, cluckin’ about!” Maddy was scandalized at the indolence of Lady’s maids.) and so on. Although she complained of each thing, Maddy did seem to delight in the talk. She was happiest when talking about the dandelions that grew in the garden (“Ay, they calls them weeds here,” Maddy boasted “but in my land, they are the sturdiest flower. No shame in being a weed, I say.”)

It was a nice diversion, for Sara did not want to talk of her master or the other things that brewed in her mind since last night. She’d spent it quietly upon his bed, staring at the fire, wondering where he was and turning over what she had done to set him off and also the ease with which she’d done it. That troubled her more.

Earlier in the morning, she asked the new tower servant, an elder maid, to fetch Hekr to buy her a dress from the markets. Since Hekr would not do the task of a tower-servant, she handed the fine dress to one of the boy-servants from Thor’s towers. When the doors opened for the young man, he marched past her, set the parcel of dress on the book-strewn table. Reclining on Loki’s bed, Sara noticed the boy did not dazzle or dizzy upon entering the chamber for the first time.

She had asked him, innocently. “Have you been here before, young master?”

Startled to see her upon the bed, the boy jumped and his face went red. He would not answer her as he left.

“Ay, you look diff’rent.” Maddy said, breaking a silence that had settled between them later in the evening. Sara was gazing out the window. Though they could not see the rainbow bridge from the hut, the lights from it illuminated the view outside their window and dominated the night sky. But tonight, this one lone star peeked out and though it was tiny, it burned bright enough to be seen over the power of the rainbow bridge’s light.

“Do I?” Sara said, absently.

“Ay, You sound diff’rent, you talk diff’rent…” A faint smile was in her squinty eyes as Maddy regarded her.

“What ‘appened to my clumsy, quiet girl?”

“I’m still quite clumsy.” Sara smiled.

With a gray, chubby hand Maddy patted Sara’s hand and chuckled. “I’m sure you are. I may jus’ be imaginings.”

“Well, you just get better, Maddy.”

“Aye. A healer is coming to take me to Sorelium – did I not tell you, girl?”

Sara feigned surprise, though, of course she knew. She felt good to have done this thing for Maddy – for Maddy would never have accepted it had she known that her once-underling was giving her charity.

“Aye – in truth! Me first trip through the bi-frost, too! Me! Can you imagine!”

“When do you go?” Sara humored her. “I’m jealous. I hear the Sorelium only opens but rare times and you have to be a god to get there.”

“Well, hell you say! I’ve got a healer-god coming here to Asgard to takes me! On the sunset after tomorrow.”

“You got very lucky indeed, Maddy.” Sara smiled.

Maddy scoffed as though this were the most obvious thing in the world. “Always said – keep your head down and work hard and you get your blessings as good as they come.”

With that, Sara cleared their bowls and rose to the kitchen.

“You will be back to your duties soon.” Sara sighed. “And I have my duties to return to tonight.” Night was falling. It was time to go to Loki’s chambers.

Maddy looked musedly at the fireplace while Sara cleaned up. Then, as Sara put her hand on the knob to leave, Maddy broke the silence.

“Is he good? Truly good, our master?” She didn’t look at Sara. Sara paused, startled that Maddy was so direct.

“Of course, he is good.” Sara said, surprised at how fast she meant it. “Yes.”

“Hm,” Maddy looked back down to her hands upon the blanket. “Is he good to you, m’lady?”

Sara smiled and felt the urge to hurry over and kiss her forehead to push the worries from her weary head. But she remained at the door and smiled.

“Goodnight, Maddy.”

~~~~

The sentinels didn’t budge when Sara stood before them and asked to be admitted. They stared ahead, staffs crossed, ears deaf to her. He was king now and without the Liason, mistress or not, Sara could not enter his chambers as citizen, even if she had just left them the previous morning. Exasperated with the new code, Sara went to turn away when she heard Loki hurrying toward them down the hall.

He rushed toward them, looking at the two guards in astonishment.

“Admit her.” He demanded.

Slowly, they uncrossed their spears and the doors clacked open. Loki sternly shot his eyes between the two of them as though they were personally plotting against him. Then, seeing Sara, he forced an amiable smile and extended his arm for her to enter.

As Sara passed him by, Loki’s smile vanished. He glared at them then stormed inside. Once the doors closed, Loki sighed. “Guards. I detest them. I always have.”

“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, your majesty.” Sara said, blankly.

Loki took her hand and said. “Come with me.”

The secret door out of his chamber glowed as they stepped into it. Her body tingled icicly as light flashed across her eyes and she found herself blinking and standing in a grand room she had never seen before.

It was abandoned and dark but dimly visible by moonlight which pooled through high arches and balconies that surrounded Loki and Sara on all sides, save one. On that wall, a giant hearth stretched dark, burnt and unlit. The moonlight also flickered through the high trees and bounced off the shiny domes from beyond the balconies; it illuminated vines of blossoms that flittered white as snow in it’s radiance. It was this light that gave the room its majesty, not just its size. Sara looked around in awe. This was the grandest chamber she’d ever seen – abandoned but well-tended to. The floors had been swept clean of the leaves and blossoms that blew in from outdoors. The grand bed made up and ready for it’s occupant to return at any moment. 

From the arches, white drapes billowed like grand sails on a calm sea. Sara tremulously walked into the heart of the room, amazed that it was as splendid as this. It’s beauty surprised her. She assumed the chamber of a brawling god like Lord Thor would be sparse and fit for a tavern, full of busted furniture and other relics of his temper. On the contrary, this place was designed for greatness, or at least its potential. It’s splendid state showed that someone had seen to it that it was made beautiful and remained beautiful.

Two metal discs sat upon a red cape, folded neatly and sitting on a long, oak table. Upon them lay a note in Queen Frigga’s famous, beautiful handwriting. Sara had seen it once before on a message to the kitchens. Careful not to pry, she looked away.

Loki surveyed his brother’s room with an amused look on his face. He ran his hand across the surface of a gold mantle along the empty hearth. He lifted the lid of a massive chest and, absent-mindedly, rifled through its contents. He mumbled “Hm,” and then with a playful flick of his arm, let the chest-lid slam to a shut. He meandered out to one of the balconies overlooking the water. The moon was so bright that it cast a silhouette of Loki through the drapes. In their fluttering movement, Sara could see Loki’s angled face gazing up at the moon.

“How do you like this chamber?” He said, turning back from the balcony.

“It’s very grand indeed, your majesty.” Sara said, trying to keep her rapture in check. She knew it was Thor’s room and wanted to be careful to not show it too much regard. So she added, truthfully. “It does not have the magic of your chamber.”

In the darkness, Loki approached her. She could not see his face until he was right infront of her.

“What are we doing here?” Sara asked.

He pointed to the bed.

Hesitantly, she sank onto it and let her back meet a sea of plush crimson; let her eyes gaze at the vaulted ceiling.

She spread her legs before Loki and the night air, breezing in through the arches, rustled up her silk gown and brushed up her thighs. Keeping her eyes fixed on his next move, she braced herself for a thrashing. But he did not crawl atop her. He fell slowly to his knees, his eyes blue and tender upon her face.

The back of her knee met leather as Loki casually draped it across his shoulder. She sat up, rested back on her arms and looked at her master, unsure what he was doing. He didn’t speak but rather looked at her with a blaze of sorrow, of quiet regret, as he cupped her neck and pulled her up and closer to him. His thumb grazed toward the bite-wound he’d left the night before. With sad eyes, Loki looked at it.

Sara winced under his touch. It stung. She pushed her palms against his chest, to push away from him, from the pain of it, but Loki crawled atop her on the bed, her leg still cradled upon his shoulder and he would not allow her to retreat from his touch. His expression surgical, he held her neck firm, his thumb tight against the wound. With his weight upon her bent-back leg and the pain in her neck, Sara gave a soft cry of agony, bit her lip and pressed against him to stop but Loki stayed focused and would not budge. He closed his eyes. His lip trembled imperceptibly as a soft light hailed from his fingers and filled the wound, healing it, breathing new life into it. As the pain pulsed away, she sighed deeply. He pressed his mouth to her wound and kissed it.

“When I was made king, I knew the first thing I desired…” Loki said into her neck while gliding his hand down her raised leg, dragging the robe open under his fingers. “…I would free you.”

He turned his head and softly bit his way down her flesh – first her calf, then the inside of her knee, then down to the inside of her thigh.

“All mine to command…” Loki slid down her body and her leg lowered with him. He opened her robe and kissed down her ribs, slid his lips down her navel until his mouth hovered feather-light over her sex.

“…No lies, no treachery, complete obedience.” He said, and the breath from his mouth heated her. “I can wield the darkest sorcery over many…but you, my creature, I never had need.”

He kissed her sex. Sara sighed.

“My beautiful creature…” Loki slid his cold tongue up the inside of her. Sara gasped again, helpless to this new sensation. It rolled up her body, rocking it like a wave under her master’s mouth. Loki responded by wrapping her other leg across his free shoulder and licking her again.

Breathlessly, she panted. Her fists lingered open beside her head as the pleasure overtook her. It was a point on her sex she had only touched with her hand, just once. Loki delved his mouth firmly upon it as though he had created it himself, knew it intimately and commanded it.

“My sweet creature…” Loki began to roll the hard bone of his thin lips around it and against it, over and over and, of their own voliton, Sara’s hands flew down to him; to grip anything that was him whether it be shoulder, hair or cheek.

For a long, sweet time Loki worked his mouth and tongue tenderly and steadily upon her and she dug her fists into the crimson sheets upon Thor’s bed. Her long hair, spread messily about Thor’s pillows, fogged into her mouth as she sucked and exhaled the moonlit air and writhed in ecstasy.

Loki braced her hips tight in his iron grip, to control them and the tips of his fingers kneaded into the soft rounds of her bottom.

Her sex had been sore from the night before and she felt it was not ready for him again, though she wanted it now. But Loki did not move to take her. Energy poured from his lips upon her sex, healing it as well as shooting it through with aching pleasure.

“My king.” Sara gasped, helplessly aloud, her eyes closed.

At those words, Loki lost his control. He growled and began to eat her hungrily – so much so that the pleasure was too intense and Sara tried to maneuver her body away from the ferocity of his tongue and his lips. Gasping, she elbowed away from Loki, inch by inch across Thor’s bed, pulling away from his mouth.

“My king, it is too much!” She pleaded.

Loki laughed mischieviously as he seized her thighs back to his control and delved his mouth upon her again, just as hungrily. In his craze, Loki’s thumbs dug into the flesh of her thighs, his fingers massaged furiously into her rounded arse as he ate her upon Thor’s bed.

She writhed wildly below his tongue, her spine arching of its own accord, lifting the backs of her shoulders from the pillows. Her eyes fell upon Loki’s dark head as though pulled by force to see the source of her torment. It shot through her relentlessly and violently sweet. Undone, she moaned repeatedly, wildly, her face contorted into what would look like pain.

She had heard the name “Silvertongue” fly around her master’s name before and now she understood why. It was a ferocious pleasure – his mouth, a muscle; his tongue, a weapon. Her hips rolled underneath him as she begged him. For what she did not know, but she begged and called out.

“Please…., my king….oh, please!”

Forgetting herself, Sara cried out wild and tore at her master’s hair as he growled and laughed devilishly in his throat and would not relent.

Shafts of moonlight streamed pale upon her soft body as it twisted and bucked under the lean, black angles of the new king.

Pleasure shot up through her blood, and down her shaking limbs. It coursed hot and furious as fresh-born lightning demanding to find it’s highest ground.

Slightly, her back rose and fell, over and over, as she cried out and Loki furiously worked his tongue across her sex, bringing with it a god-size pleasure not meant for her kind.

In her twisting, her head fell over the edge of Thor’s bed. She moaned so loud and violently that she thought all of Asgard would awake.

“Let them hear you, my creature. Let them hear you call out for me.” Loki demanded.

Under Loki’s mouth, her hips reared back and forth in a rhythm. She could not control them. They were entirely in his thrall. Her legs quaked as climax thundered up her body. As she came, her hips bucked violently toward him and Loki held her thighs down upon the bed so hard that she thought her hips would snap from their joints. She did not care, for Loki bit upon her sex, and dragged his teeth up it feather-light as she came and cried out “Loki!” so loud the night-birds startled off their branches, night-dogs barked at the air and leagues below, upon the tower grounds, two night-servants paused mid-drink and looked up toward Thor’s balcony, confused.

In ecstasy, Sara collapsed into rest.

~~~~

Sea-breezes, thick and cold, tickled her face. Sara stirred awake and found she was not laying on Thor’s bed, or Loki’s, but rather on a bed of soft grass. The night sky was dark above and brimming with stars. Far below, the rainbow bridge shot a straight, thin sparkling line through the city and ended at the gigantic, silver sphere of the bi-frost. It’s spear pointed to the heavens over the dark, roaring sea. From the high hill, she could even hear the waves pounding against the bluffs.

Loki laid upon his back, gazing up at the stars, one arm around her and the other crooked behind his head. His legs crossed at the ankles, he looked like the farm boys Sara had seen dozing in the fields, lost in their dreams. Gungnir lay beside him, glowing gold on the dark hillside.

She smiled. Loki curled his arm tighter around her, pulling her in so that his lips grazed into the mess of her dark hair.

“Why do you want that box, Sara?” he said.

Though she felt his limbs peacefully around her, his tone trembled darkly.

“Only for the reason I’ve said, your majesty. It’s a music box, a gift from my mother. My only gift.”

Internally, she winced, afraid that Loki would detect her little embellishment.

Two large ravens flapped over head, cawing loudly upon the sea-winds. Loki followed them with his eyes.

“Did you know that the box is Midgardian?”

“Yes.” Sara said, remembering when her mother gave it to her. She was but a child and the box played a delightful tune when she wound it up for her. “She told me it was to celebrate the birth of a baby king that came to Midgard to free its people.”

Loki blinked his eyes slow, in blissful recollection. “Ah, yes. I’ve heard of him.”

“That’s all I know of the box, your majesty.”

“It contains a strange magic.” Loki said. “I should like to know it. Until then, it stays in the Vault.”

Exasperated, Sara closed her eyes and relaxed deep into the leathered corner of his arm. It didn’t matter. The Asgardians could be baffled by the damn music box. Loki could play with it all he wanted. She had her mother’s blessing as a gift and nothing no longer mattered but staying upon this hill, in the night-time, inside his arms.

She sighed. “As you wish, your majesty.”

They went quiet for another long moment, listening to the sounds of the sea and the winds rustling in the grass. Loki’s fingers grazed gingerly up and down her arm.

“How did your mother die?” He asked. His voice lifted lightly, curious.

Sara had long buried the memory away. It astonished her how clear it came back to her now. Absently, she ran her finger across the gold crescent on Loki’s chest and stared at it.

“A plague came to two of our villages. It took my brother and my father. Then, days later, raiders came upon the backs of fire-beasts and sacked the rest. They burned the farmlands with the people still upon them. My mother, and my infant sister were one of them. I had been hidden.”

She shut her eyes tight at the image of her mother on the ground with the baby in her arms. They were both charred black against the golden yellow corn. The fires of the beasts exploded around her. The sun was blood-red in the smoke of their destruction.

Loki was silent.

“And I ran.” Sara added, softly. The guilt twisted into her throat but her words came out dead. “I did not go to her. I saw her and ran away. As fast as I could. I should’ve gone to her, or gone to the village to help, but I was afraid. And I ran. I was a coward.”

In his tender-taken breath, a sadness weighed in Loki’s chest, underneath her head. He replied, quietly.

“That’s not cowardice, my creature. That’s survival.”

She shut her eyes and remained silent. She wanted to think of it no longer. Loki lowered his eyes from the expanse above and looked down at the glimmering sprawl of Asgard.

“If anything happened to my mother, I think I would go mad.” Loki said, grimly. “I cannot imagine what I would do.” He trailed off, rested his head upon hers and buried his lips in her hair.

“Would you run, like I did?”

“Oh, my love, I would do much, much worse than that.” Loki nearly spit the words through his clenched teeth if he had not spoken them so slow. His expression hardened and his eyes darkened. His arm tensed so tight around her that Sara shifted inside of it. Her hair moved upon his face and, closing his eyes, he softened.

“There are times,” Loki said. “That I see her in you.”

Sara opened her eyes. He did not say it as a compliment but as a statement. She chose silence and let his words descend on her heavily.

Loki wondered back up at the sky.

“We would come up here as boys.” Loki said. “And my mother would search for us all night until she despaired. Then we would come out and attempt to frighten her.”

Sara smiled. “Indeed, that is naughty, your majesty. She must have been scared out of her wits.”

“No.” Loki said. “She could never be frightened.”

“And how about your father? Did you hide from him?”

“All the time.” Loki smiled. “He would find Thor quickly for he was loud and foolish. I never got discovered.”

“No wonder he could not find you, your majesty.” She curled up into his neck and draped her arm across his waist. Loki smiled into her hair. “You are too quick and crafty.”

“No.” Loki said, trailing his eyes across the stars. “He never looked for me.”

They were silent for a moment and listened to the wind upon the grass.

“Do you miss your brother?” Sara asked, her voice muffled into his shoulder.

A weighted silence fell between them and Loki did not answer. He tightened his arm around her.

“Look up…” he whispered.

Sara joined his gaze sky-ward. On this high, lone hill, the blackness of the sky and the millions of stars were tremendous. The vastness of the heavens dizzied her and she shut her eyes against it, buried her head into his shoulder and laughed.

“Keep looking, you silly creature…” Loki smiled, flinching his arm about her..

She looked up and soon, a shimmering vein of blue-white stars appeared, undulating from one dark horizon to the next. Like an aurora, brilliant but temporary, it hovered in the stars. 

“Oh!” Sara could not help but exclaim. “What is that?”

“That is just one of the branches of Ygdarssil.” Loki said, proud. 

“Your majesty, I feel like I am falling into it.” Sara said, dazzled. “As though the sky is the ground and I am up high.”

The stars drew past her eyes slowly and she felt herself cascading down and in between them.

Loki laughed softly in her ear. His teeth gleamed white and his eyes crinkled in a smile. “That is the pull of the realms you feel.”

She braced her hand upon his chest to steady herself. He took his hand from behind his head and put it over hers.

“If I fell into them, would you catch me quickly, your majesty?” She laughed.

“Faster than light, I would.” Loki said, his eyes still smiling.

“Ygdarissil…” Sara gasped in wonder. “Is that…the World Tree?”

“Yes.” Loki said.

She wondered how the shadows and darknesses could ever live inside her when everything pulsed with life, with wild blood and shimmering beauty. How had she never seen it?

“It’s glorious.” She sighed.

At her rapture, Loki grinned. In bliss, he blinked his eyes slow up at the light from Ygdarissil.

“It is glorious.” He said. “And I would burn it to the ground if you were ever taken from me again.”

Sara pulled her eyes from the spectacle and looked at him watching it. His face bright and smiling.

“Will this last, Loki?” Sara asked. “I should like this.”

“I will make it so.” Loki said, his eyes searching the stars. The spaces of light where things could be born, where things could die. “I have a plan now. Great plans. For us all.”


	8. Tales from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day Loki leaves to lay his traps, Sara struggles with her intuitions and discovers something about her past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline to Thor(film): Timeline’s getting tight here, folks! And it’s only gonna get tighter. The events in this chapter take place the day Loki visits Jotunheim and Midgard in the movie.
> 
> The opening sequence of this chapter begins the morning after Thor infiltrates the S.H.I.E.L.D site on Midgard and tries to reclaim Mjlonir.
> 
> And the closing sequence of this chapter takes place the morning after Loki returns from Midgard and Jotunheim and catches sass from Heimdall in the bi-frost

The morning deepened in the forest glade.

The statue of Bor rested on its side like a giant slain in battle.

Upon it, rivers of leaves collected and blew; gold and orange and brown, the colors of other earths, they carried the scent of rainfall and ancient stone.

Against it, two lovers heaved their bodies and panted together. The dawn air met the heat of their open, gasping mouths and their frosted breath lingered and died in the cold morning.

Above it, the glade broke open to a high, windy pass that led to the sea. A few beasts glanced down at the lovers with bemused eyes before trudging on.

In the hands of mighty Bor, a stone sword ran parallel to the ground. Sara gripped the hilt with all her might as though she would lift it from its frozen, ancient sheath and rally a battle cry with it. Her two fists clutched the hilt, her knuckles white, as she balanced herself on one bare foot digging into the soft earth.

Loki had bent her over the immense sword, her leg lifted by his pale hand that clawed her upper thigh and held it steady so he could burrow as deep up inside her as he desired.

She curled her head backward as her master pounded her relentlessly.

A nearby waterfall, cloaked from their sight, kicked up mist that rolled over their heads. Winds tore down from the high pass and the leaves flew off the statue and clung to her skin as Loki slid his free hand up the front of her body; his winter branches of fingers clawed up her breasts, tracking them with soil as they slid up her collarbone and wrapped upon her shoulder, bracing her tight against him as though she were a wild animal ready to flee from his power.

Sara closed her eyes and savored each of Loki’s thrusts, the fever in his breath as it exhaled rapid and hot upon her ear, the brush of his jaw as it slacked open and grazed the back of her neck whenever he drooped his head, exhausted, in his own ecstasy of her.

The gold band upon her ankle scraped against the stone sword…scrff, scrff, scrff… as she rocked back into him, and he into her.

Loki rutted so high and deep that Sara had to crane upon her tip-toe to take in all of him. She twisted her neck to meet his mouth with hers, but his lips hovered too far away – just inches away – and she watched his face, saw his eyes slide open. They were full of pale light, hungry and focused. Loki held her gaze as he slowly burrowed in and out of her.

Then, as though reading her call to bring his lips to hers, he plunged himself into her to the hilt, close enough to meet her mouth where he found it and seized it with his lips.

“Will you look at another while I’m gone?” he demanded, breathing hard.

“No, my king.” Sara panted, her voice breaking in shudders of pleasure that shot up her spine, arching ever slowly and curving her farther up to him. She loosed a shaking hand from the hilt, balancing precarious on one foot and dared pulled his neck closer to her – it was warm to her touch. Her eyes jerked closed as Loki began to pulse into her harder and as she headed toward her threshold, the world around her began to blur out of focus.

“I will look at no other.” She panted, meaning every word though he was so deep inside her, she was bearing the sweet pain and pleasure at once. Colors sparkled behind her closed lids as she rose up toward climax.

“For I do not want to.” She gasped. “Nor will I ever.”

At her words, a crescent curved across Loki’s lips and a glow kindled in his eyes. Still rutting slow, he buried his mouth onto hers and when he slid his tongue within the cave of her lips she could not help herself and she moaned into her master’s mouth.

She was nearly there, cresting on the brink of climax. Her hips began to freeze, her spine to arch…

A thunder of hooves sounded from far below, presaged by a flock of sparrows that startled from the treetops down the hillside.

“My king…” Sara panted into his neck. “Loki…the guards…someone is coming.” 

“Let them watch.” He fisted his fingers into her hair and softly pulled her head back so he could bite her neck.

“Loki!” she gasped, laughing and horrified, as the commotion of horses drew nearer from below them, about to round out the forest path, fly up the hill and see them both in full, wild cavort upon the sacred ruins of mighty Bor.

Her earlobe between his teeth, Loki laughed as he slid from her.

“Damn.” He whispered.

Unwilling to break contact, Loki held her body in his hands as Sara brought her leg down, wincing in pain as she did so, for it had been held aloft for quite some time.

Half-sated, nearly-sated, almost there. She turned to him, exhilarated, her cheeks pink. Loki looked down at her with eyes beaming and full of mischief, his lips pursed in a smile as he leaned his forehead at her and just stood there while the horses galloped closer.

“My liege!” Erlingr called out from below.

“My clothes!” Sara draped her arms across her body but to no avail for Loki kept smiling at her. He raised his brows and glanced in the direction of their rapidly-approaching new guests. 

He then looked back to her. His eyes danced.

“You are too wild for modesty.” He dared.

“Please, Loki – do not…”

In a dazzle, Loki morphed into his armor and cape just as the men crested the hill. In a slow arc, as though it was spent and tired itself, Gungnir rose from the ground and into Loki’s grip. Rather than conceal her with same-such magic, Loki whipped her behind him with one arm and tried to suppress his laughter as Erlingr and his men crested the hill. From atop his horse, Erlingr hailed Loki and bowed his head.

Smiling still, Loki nodded and addressed them all cordially.

“Yes, Good Erlingr.” Loki said, smirking as Sara giggled and struggled behind him, hiding her face. He cleared his throat and continued, his tone mocking good humor. “Do you bring news of Odin on this fine morning? It is a fine morning, is it not?”

He looked brightly to the men but they only bowed their heads in all reverence and seriousness. Loki rolled his eyes.

Nervously, Erlingr looked at the stifled commotion behind Loki’s cape. Loki followed his gaze to Sara’s bare leg that peeked out from the side of it. He then narrowed his eyes at him.

“What brings you here, Erlingr.” Loki stated, turning his expression to regal steel.

Snapping to, Erlinger straightened.

“My liege, he is still in Odinsleep.” He said. “I come only to tell you that all is prepared for your absence today. And if you will, my liege, can you tell us where you journey?”

Loki did not bother to say the words. He stared at Erlingr with dark, blank eyes that implied he was on dangerous ground asking a king about his private affairs. They would never have dared asked such a question of Odin.

Reading it, Erlingr stumbled quickly.

“For when the Queen asks, my liege. She asks for you every day, sir.”

Loki stated flat, and a little too quickly. “I go to Vanaheim. We may need allies if the truce with Jotunheim goes ill.”

Erlingr nodded, amiably. “Very well, my leige.” With an uneasy glance behind Loki, Erlingr nodded to the men flanking him and in a splatter of mud from hooves, they tore back down the hillside. Sara peeked around Loki’s arm when they were once again alone.

Loki watched them leave. 

“They pry worse than nurse-maids.” He said.

Though she wouldn’t believe him, she swallowed and asked.

“Will you be in danger, your majesty?”

Loki kept looking after their retreat, a cloud settling upon his face. He barely heard her.

“Loki…” she tugged on his arm. “Will you be in danger where you go?”

“Yes.” Loki said. Then he smiled. “But that…is the fun part.”

As though the mere idea of it awakened his lust, Loki took her head in his hands and kissed her passionately.

“Now, where was I?” Loki said, sliding his finger up inside her. Heat and wet ignited between her legs, still clenching from his presence between them just moments ago.

Sara leaned back, stretching her arms across the mighty, granite sword. Her knee rose in the air and she kept her gaze on Loki as he held her neck and went knuckle-deep into her.

“When I visit that pitiful realm,” Loki looked down at his busy, diligent hand. “I want you on my fingers.”

She leaned back and closed her eyes.

He whispered. “Stay there.”

Then, he vanished in thin air.

Eyes closed, Sara waited for his hands upon her. Mists trickled across her bare breasts. She felt the sun on her face, the cold air cloaking her warm limbs.

“My king…” she giggled, when she did not feel him touch her.

Wet leaves clung to her naked skin as she rose up, opening her eyes.

Laughing a little, she called out for him. She looked around, exhilarated by the ecstasy from which she’d just climbed down and was about to climb again.

“Loki?”

She scanned the trees and squinted up toward the sky where the sunlight broke through the clouds. She called out for him again and there was no answer. She heard only the sound of sparrows and the waterfall that roared in the distance, its mists carried into the air and flew over her head, casting prisms of color in the sunlight.

For a moment, a sliver of dread started to needle back into her heart.

One last time, she called out “Loki?” and noticed her voice shaking.

Loki cleared his throat.

She turned around. Loki stood atop Bor, wearing the strangest garb she’d ever seen. Lines of gold shimmered over his bare feet and curled away, revealing black shoes.

Astonished, she took him in from foot to head.

“Your majesty, what is this?” The suit wasnot Asgardian, though it was comprised of many pieces like Asgardian dress. It bore no leather, no metal, no gold. It was bare of armor, no place for weapons. Loki leapt from the statue and Sara reached out towards his clothes, smiling in delight at the strange details.

He wore a kind of jacket, long and loose down the sleeves, and it cut open down the middle revealing another light material – a white blouse that Sara could only make a mental equivalent to an undershift that ladies wore back in her village. Stripes as thin as threads ran down its breadth, along a line of tiny buttons. The tops of the blouse folded down in triangles and held a long, black line of cloth hanging down its center. That was the strangest piece of it. She ran her fingers down it, unsure of its function. It did not brace a man upright, or protect a vital organ. The pants hung straight and loose, as well. A long, patterned scarf hung around his neck.

If not for his height and strength, he looked nearly frail and breakable in the suit. Amused, Loki watched her as she ran her hand along the flimsy material, taking it between her fingers. It was certainly not designed for a realm of eternal winter – it was so delicate, as though it would rip in the lightest of wind.

“What kind of realm requires no armor?” She looked up at him in wonder. “No rank or distinction?”

A glint of malice flickered in his eyes as he looked at her.

“A lost realm.” He pulled her into him. “And, besides, my creature…I need no distinction.”

Small patches of mud, marked by his fingerprints, smattered across the back of her legs, along her arms, down her back. Orange leaves nestled in her dark hair. The wet earth met her bare feet and the stone of the statue burned cold against her bare bottom as Loki pressed her against it. She wrapped her arms around his neck. The ends of his strange scarf tickled her upper thighs. Her damp, naked body, and all its scents, rubbed against his suit as he pressed against her. Loki wrapped her leg around his waist.

Her ankle upon the back of his pants, she pulled him closer to her as he buried his nose into her hair and inhaled deeply. Beneath the light material of his pants, Sara felt him harden and swell against her navel.

He clawed her bottom and growled through his teeth.

“I like you like this.” Loki said, his eyes flashing. “Bare and wild.”

Sara wrapped her other leg around him as Loki hoisted her up, his hands clawing into her bare arse to support her. His eyes travelled down her body, musing across her face and down her breasts – all in his arms, his command forever.

“Wise, treacherous and wild – the feminine of the universe. That is my favorite.” He kissed her neck, hungrily, riling himself up and with one arm holding her, he used his other to unhook himself from within his pants.

“Your majesty, you’ve just had me.” Sara sighed, a resigned laugh, rosy in her throat as Loki slid up into her again. She gasped. He was hard as stone. He closed his eyes and burrowed his face into her neck as he entered her again. And again.

“It’s not enough.” He whispered. “It’s never enough.” 

They moved together, slow and steady for some time. Sara dug her hands into his shoulders under the thin fabric of his jacket, then – as it gave under her fingers – she held herself up by clinging around his neck. Her bare limbs wrapped around his thin suit. She bit her lip as her sore sex received him again and again and the shafts of sun came down upon her face – gilded and wearily across her eyes.

“Will you be gone long, my king?”

Loki breathed hot upon her throat.

“But a few hours…” 

As she rose and sank in his arms, her head fell back in ecstasy. Skyward, her eyes opened and she watched a dark cloud slide across the sun, cloaking the world in gray, murky shade. It felt like a palm sliding upon her mouth, silencing her with dread as it came back again. The sense that Loki would not return, that this was the last she’d see him.

She shut her eyes and clutched tighter around his neck as Loki uncoiled himself up into her, losing himself, and kissing her with such passion that his teeth mashed against hers with every other thrust. She wove her fingers into his hair and it was damp, perpetually damp, as though he always stepped out of the dawn somewhere.

Do not leave, Loki she whispered in her mind. She felt it so strongly that she was not sure if she said it aloud. Holding her with one arm, Loki slid his fingers upon her throat and held it gently as he drew her skin into his lips.

“I will not be long, my creature.”

~

With a smile on his lips, Loki adjusted himself back into his pants while Sara rifled through her satchel. Loki buttoned his jacket and smoothed a hand over it, absent-mindedly, while Sara turned to him and held out a small, armored sash.

“Now, what is this?” Loki said as he hovered his hand over it, hesitant, as though it might bite him…

~~~

Midgard and Jotunheim. In the morning, Loki would go there and that was all Sara knew. He gave her only two words at the end of one question when she dared ask: What is your plan?

When he said “Jotunheim” the word collided against her. He said it so casual, that she thought she must have heard him wrong.

She would not dare question him but she could not comprehend why he would walk – alone – into the frozen waste of Jotunheim, a realm hell-bent on war with Asgard and teeming full of treacherous frost giants, whether they were kin or not. She wanted Thor’s return no more than her master, but entering that place without his brawling strength beside him, seemed the plan of a mad man. With Thor and four warriors beside him, Loki had barely made it out alive. How would he fare alone? She knew little beyond her life, but even the village fool could see it was un-wise to go to such a realm under-manned.

Sara drew up the hood of her cape, determined to get to the mage-smith before he closed. Unlike practitioners of magic, mage-smiths were not reviled for they descended from the first builders and stone-cutters of Asgard. They crafted its mighty fortresses of gold and stone. Their masonry contained age-old magic and it was no secret that their descendants could weave spells into shields, enchantments into axes…for the right price.

And for the right Asgardians.

But only Asgardians. A foreign subject caught calling upon a mage-smith could find themselves in chains. Loki was king but the laws were laws and Sara did not want to tempt them or make a scene. But it was worth a try. For her, Loki tore into Hel and into the Realm of Shadow. She could cross this lane and dare, for him.

The stalls along the market were closing up for the evening. Servants climbed ladders and lit the torches upon the gold-paved walls, illuminating the stone paved alley.

A line of mighty steeds made their way up the narrow lane, pushing the dwindling throng to the sides. While Sara waited to cross, a flutter of movement caught her eye. Under the eaves across the way she saw a baby crow – tiny as a flint, black as the evening – pecking at its nest. Wildly, it tore up bits and pieces of its straw walls until finally it tore open a gap so wide that its little body stumbled out of it. In a wild scramble of claws and squawks, it fell from its high nest and landed, with a tiny splash, in a large puddle. The stars, reflected in the water, shimmered and danced as the baby crow flapped wildly, splashing and squawking, trying to right itself.

Sara rushed into the middle of the lane and scooped the little bird from the water. It thrashed in her palms, its wing broken and jutting out from its body. She looked up to the nest, but it was too high for her to reach. The little crow bit at the air, her flesh, it’s own wing. It then flailed from her hands and dashed itself upon the ground again.

At that moment, a stable-boy called out for her to clear the way as he neared with Gullfaxi, Thor’s majestic white steed. As she turned to look, a nighthawk swooped to the ground, clenched the tiny bird in its beak and took off.

Horrified, Sara stepped out of the way for Gullfaxi to pass and watched the hawk ascend toward the sky, an ill feeling in her heart. The baby bird still writhing in its mouth, the hawk would not give way when a gang of magpies swooped toward it determined to wrench the little crow from it’s beak and take it for their own.

In the Seven Villages, a fallen bird was a bad omen; seeing a magpie at night was even worse, much less several.

Since leaving the Shadow realm, she could brush dark thoughts away as soon as they came. But this was an omen. This was different. The chattering throng broke around her as Sara stood in the middle of the wind-swept alley, staring up at the spectacle, trying to steel herself against the feeling that boiled ill and unsteadily in her blood as the birds danced in the air, tearing apart their prey.

I am turning paranoid like dear Old Marckus, she thought, who detected ill portents in the dance of even the brightest flower.

It is nothing, it is no omen, she told herself and drew her hood farther down her head as she hurried across the lane. It was just the ways of nature in all its savagery – relentless, old and never-changing savagery.

It was but her fear for Loki’s safe return from Jotunheim that put her on edge and made her see omens where there were none.

Krocus, the mage-smith, eyed her curiously as she approached.

She kept her head down as she looked across his array of scythes, amulets, helmets, arm shields, elbow shields. On his worktable lay his tools – twine, daggers, an hourglass glowing gold with what looked to be a tiny galaxy inside. A giant urn bubbled in silvery metals and rainbow-colored bubbles bulged and popped along the surface of it.

“Surely, m’lady, you do not come for battle gear.”

In a reflex, Sara dipped her head.

“I have disturbed you.” She muttered quickly. “I see you are nearly closed.” She bowed and went to hurry off when Krocus chuckled.

“No, not at all, m’lady! I can smith a blessing at this late hour as good as I can in the early ones. Indeed, I’ve had meager trade today. Please, come back.”

Hesitant, Sara looked between him and the peopled lane, spying empty spots through which she could make a quick exit if he were to take issue with her request.

She rifled in her pockets and pulled out a small sack of coin. She held it out to him, keeping her head down.

“Can you weave a sash for armor?”

“As fast as lightning, my lady.” He folded his arms across his giant chest and chuckled at her caution. Asgardians came for his special skills frequently – there was no need for this kind of discretion. “Would you like me to…augment it?”

Augment…Augment. She did not know that word, so she kept her eyes down and tried to discern if it meant what she wanted it to mean.

“Would you like me to forge an extra…power…into it?” Krocus added. He raised his eyebrows and smacked the steel prong against his palm.

“Can you forge a blessing of protection, my lord?” Sara hurried out, quietly.

“Ah! Protection. Against what, my lady? My ancestors need…specifics.”

She looked to the side. She had not thought this through. She knew nothing of magery or battle. Only that she felt in her bones that her master would not return. Protection against death itself? That seemed a good start. But that was surely the domain of sorcerers, not mage-smiths.

“Death.”

The mage-smith only nodded his head slow, in the negative, with the smug smile of one who has been asked a hundred times.

“Enemies, then.” She said, quietly. “Enemies.”

“Do you plan to wage a war, my lady?” Krocus chuckled.

“No, my lord.”

She held out the coins again, this time higher and kept her eyes averted.

Krocus looked at her, half amused and half suspicious, as he took the bag from her hand and weighed its heft in his meaty palm.

She wondered if it was too little or too much coin. It was all she had saved. At his hesitation, she kept her eyes to the ground, wondering if each second he said nothing clocked a new treason into her future. He was studying her. The bubble of the urn gurgled and popped.

“This sack is too light for an Asgardian of your status.” He said. “Judging by the silk of your robes.”

He nodded toward her lush gowns of emerald and ebony under an even richer cape. These were provided by her master to the Ladies maids for her to wear each morning. She’d felt embarrassed of their opulence before, but now they just might get her killed…again.

“I’ve seen you before,” Krocus said, questioning. “Here. In the market. Always looking over your shoulder. You wore the garb of a servant, in the colors of an Otherlander, though you are slightly taller than most Otherlanders.”

At these words, she knew she was done for. She glanced up in a flinch and Krocus caught her eyes in the firelight. A beam of delighted surprise came over his face.

“Oh, praise Odin, what luck. What good luck!”

Sara shuffled on her feet, drew her cape close around her and was about to make a swift run for Loki’s towers. Loki surely would not let anyone take her away again, but she would need to make it before the guards got to her first and erupted a scene.

Krocus took one coin from the sack, pocketed it and pressed the bag back into her hand, smiling and nodding his head.

“This will be ‘on the house’ as they say in your realm.” He winked and twisted a rag around his steel prongs as he fired up the cauldron.

Sara had never heard of such a saying in the villages. But she gave a slight nod and an uneasy smile as she took the bag from his hand, grateful that he did not call for a herald of sentinels to arrest her on the spot.

He placed a thick paw on the gold plate across his chest and bowed.

“M’lady, please tell your people that Krocus the Bravefist is much fond of Taj Mahal.”

Sara could find no words to answer his strange ramblings, his line of riddles. She wondered if there was a dabbler in magic who was actually sane – fully sane. Marckus, Loki, now this man. She smiled polite.

“I will do so, my lord. I thank you.”

He stirred the urn until it grew to an inferno blazing from the pot, brimming with voices, strange music and the lights of distant stars. He stopped stirring and lifted up a long belt from his table.

“I can forge you a fine armored plate to slide over a sash. Like so.”

He slid a long, bronze plate – about the size of her forearm – along the strap. He then draped the strap diagonal over his body to show her how it would look. It was easy to imagine her master wearing that and so she nodded her head, ‘yes’. He set it upon the table, muttered a spell quietly and pressed several studs along the edge of it.

“All my fathers and all my mothers are mage-kind.” Krocus beamed proudly, as though he were but a humble man being forced to admit greatness. “It takes a discerning eye. And they have the sharpest eyes to read the eyes that are not our kind of eyes. I have inherited such a gift.”

Politely, she smiled – again – at his riddled thinking.

“I must say, it is very rare to serve a Midgardian and it is my highest honor.”

“Oh, I am not from Midgard.” Sara corrected, waving up her hand and placing it back upon her other hand. She bit her lip, shut her eyes and cursed herself a fool.

Once again, she had not minded her tongue. His belief that she was Midgardian was the only thing that stood between her and trouble.

But Krocus tapped his nose and nodded at her as though they were in conspiracy together.

“Ah, it is not a friendly place for your kind, yes. My mistake.” He frowned and tutted to himself. “In some halls, you are viewed lower than goats and you have good cause to hide it, my lady. My understanding and sympathies are with you. But you should know that I, and my ancestors, look fondly on your race.” He gazed out to the night sky. “Ah, the pyramids…that was a triumph.”

She lowered her head and kept her mouth closed.

“You have the eyes of Midgard.” He continued, looking out at the stars. “Next to Asgardians, they look like child’s eyes – always full of hope and the dawn, the flash of new dreams. It is a shame you must hide them.” He shrugged and changed tack, merrily. “Well, then. The sash needs an emblem, m’lady. What shall it be?”

Sara paused, blank. She had not thought of design.

“To secure the blessing of protection, the lady’s sash needs an emblem.”

Beasts, horses, stars, wolves and falcons glimmered from shields in the light from the firing urn. For Loki, the first image that came to her mind was like one from perhaps a dream she had, or it was a memory from ages ago as it kindled in her head. He stood before a serpent full of shadows that towered to the heavens. For her, he braved it and vanquished it.

“A serpent.”

Krocus rose his eyebrows and shrugged his giant shoulders.

“ ‘Tis a strange animal for armor but as the lady wishes.” He held up another sample piece. “I can forge a band for you as well, my lady. Woven from the same gold. A neckplate? Perhaps a jewel, if you like. It would go well with your gowns.”

Out of obedience, she’d let Hekr and Gedr bedeck her with jewels. To request jewelry for herself felt absurd.

“Can you make an ankle brace long enough to fit a small dagger?” Her mother’s obsidian blades, laid flat together were thick as one dagger blade. It would be an ideal way to keep them upon her and hidden at all times.

“As easy as the wind, I can, m’lady. I can proof it against wind, water and fire, too.”

Sara stared into the bubbling inferno as Krocus called out to his ancestors and let their powers imbue the fires that would forge the sash and the broad anklet.

Visions danced before her eyes and they brought more ill feelings with it.

This wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough. Without thinking, Sara grabbed the mage-smith’s dagger, pulled her hair tight and dragged the blade across a small lock of her hair. Twisting them together, securing them with twine, she tossed it inside the giant ladle as he scooped the molten bronze from the pot.

Krocus smiled at her as he heaved it away.

“Ah, this is for a lover, I see. ’Tis good luck, my lady! They say but two hairs from a lover’s head can guide the lost on a fork’d path. And a lock may join two hearts. Indeed, the lad is a lucky one.”

She looked up at him, relieved, for that was a pleasant thought.

At that moment, a fork of lightning lashed across the heavens. Krocus glanced up along with Sara for it was an odd sight. There was no rain, no clouds overhead and no storm. Suddenly, Gullfaxi let out a loud, defeated tuft from his nostril and lowered his head as all the glisten of his illustrious white mane dimmed as though darkened by a shade.

Sara and Krocus watched the unsettling spectacle of Gullfaxi’s majesty fade, second by second, as he swished his tail and sank his giant head, as though a wave of despair just crashed over him. His black eyes, glossy and bold, blinked slow and sad as his coat dulled from brilliant white to a dull gray.

The stable-boy tugged on Gullfaxi’s reins to lift his head and carry on his eating, but Gullfaxi refused to eat and would not budge as he goaded him.

Sara met his eyes – sad and despairing – as another long streak of lightning lashed across the stars. Followed by rain. Then a swift and thunderous storm sped across the night and vanished just as swift, leaving a cloudless sky.

~~~

“Am I going into battle?” Loki asked, amused, as Sara took a step toward him, the sash heavy on her palm. The sun glinted off the outline of the serpent. 

“It is a gift, my king.” Sara said. “I had it made for you.”

Looking at her, Loki took it slowly from her hands and held it upon his fingertips – careful and elegant as though he immediately sensed it was not domestic brass but containing magic far heavier.

Loki dragged his gaze across it with a strange expression – between delight, curiosity and suspicion, as though he had either never received a gift or never seen an armored plate.

“You had this crafted for me.” Loki stated and shot his eyes back to her.

“For your protection.” Sara added.

After looking at it for a few beats, his brows furrowed together and Loki raised his chin, puzzled.

“Against what?”

She looked at him with an earnest face that seemed to merely amuse him. 

“Enemies.” Sara said.

The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled, exhaling a laugh that was nearly boyish, almost embarrassed.

Hardly glancing at it again, Loki waved a hand over the brass sheath and it hovered mid-air. He passed his other hand below it and then drawing his palms in opposite directions, it vanished before her eyes.

“Where did it go?” she gasped.

“To a special place I like to keep my possessions and retrieve them when I wish.” He pulled her in close to him and looked down at her nakedness, temptingly. “And if you do not dress yourself, I will put you in there next.”

He held out his arm sidelong and her gown materialized and dangled from his outstretched forefinger.

“Where is your modesty?” Loki said.

Sara lifted it from his finger and hurried into the green and ebony silk, trying her best to take his lightness to heart though she was disappointed he did not arm himself with it immediately. Quietly, Loki’s eyes danced down her body as it disappeared from his view slowly – inch by inch.

On horseback, they tore along the high pass. As the ground fell away to a grassy path that ran along the cliffside by the sea, she glanced behind her to the lone hill where she had seen the lights of Ygdarissil the night before last. She held tight to Loki’s waist and saw the citadel looming far in the distance to the north. As they rounded the path, the mighty rainbow bridge glided slowly into view, hanging high above the rocky shoreline which bursted with white and thrashing waves.

At an abandoned guard post, Loki dismounted and helped Sara down from the massive, black stallion that clopped impatiently underneath her, neighing and stamping its feet, eager to keep riding. Loki flipped the reins over the post and she bucked angrily at the restraints until Loki placed his palm upon her neck and she calmed.

Here the salty-aired sea thrashed below on the rocks and sent gales of ocean winds, imbued with the bi-frost’s power, tingling and metallic across Beth’s skin as it rushed up from the sea. The new morning sun glinted on a dark gate-house that held court in the middle of the rainbow bridge.

Loki looked out to the bi-frost and then turned to Sara.

He leant down to kiss her. His lips were still warm. His other hand cupped her neck, tenderly.

“Do not fret, my creature.” Loki took her chin in his hand. “I’ll be gone but a few hours. This is a mere child’s game, not a battle. I have no use for armor. I mean to return with something far mightier.”

“As you wish, Loki.” She said, looking between his eyes. “I will not let myself worry.”

She closed her eyes as he kissed her quickly. Too quickly. When she opened them, his eyes were light and his brows flinched upward as he said “Farewell.”

Loki’s fingers fell from her face and he paced away. She watched him as he walked away, buoyantly, toward the mighty bridge – a dark dash walking headlong into a bright sea of colors, the sun on his face. He looked at her over his shoulder, his eyes shining bright, blue and wild in the morning sun. With lips closed, he smiled at her…and vanished.

~

Loki’s absence unnerved her.

She’d already failed at her promise, but he had failed at his.

The “few hours” had come and gone. It was high afternoon and Loki had still not returned. The higher the sun rose in the sky, the longer the shadows grew, and so did the dread that she had tried to keep at bay.

She had busied herself all day. She’d bathed. She’d walked. She’d dug up her mother’s obsidian blades from Maddy’s garden and secured them in the ankle band. She’d peeked in on Maddy who lay dozing in her cot, her travel knapsack bulging and ready for her trip to the realm of Sorelium.

She lingered in Loki’s towers all afternoon, exploring them. Unlike Lord Thor’s towers, which needed constant tending in his absence, Loki’s presence imbued the air of his empty halls as though he had folded his essence inside of it, pulsing all the torches, enriching all the echoes.

She picked up a book from a mountain of books in his study. She did not know how to read and there were many words – thousands upon thousands of them, black scribbling lines blurring and shifting beneath her eyes.

She flounced upon his bed and looked up. Dark marks scarred across the wooden rafters from blasts of magic. Although sunlight burned upon the windows, his chambers were cold. She curled up before the hearth, watched the flames and dozed into a nap.

Some time later, she stirred in her sleep.

I cannot lift it.

She slowly opened her eyes at the sound of Loki’s voice.

I cannot lift it.

Half-asleep, Sara replied, “Cannot lift what, your majesty?”

She yawned, drawing the back of her hand upon her mouth as she lolled to waking, smiling and relieved that Loki had returned.

She opened her eyes expecting to see her master’s boots directly before her. But she just saw the flames of his hearth. Rather than dying out, they raged high and wild as though some phantom had slinked in while she slept and fed them with a horde of fresh logs.

She sat up, confused, for she heard his voice as clear as though he whispered it in her ear. Getting up, Sara looked around. He was not in his chambers.

She went out to the colonnade that ran behind Loki’s tower. It faced the sea and afforded a better view of the bi-frost than the one from his window. The silver globe stood vigil, quietly and undisturbed.

She wandered across a stone bridge that joined the Odinsons towers. A jagged gap tore across the middle of it where the stones had given way. She hitched her skirts and leapt over it.

She ascended a stairway to a balcony that hovered over a great waterfall that gushed in a bellowing, foam-white arc across a strip of the rainbow bridge as it cut right below it, on its way toward the heart of the kingdom.

Sunset was coming in an army of clouds burning hot pink and orange upon the surface of the sea, blinding her as she shielded her eyes and squinted toward the bi-frost, waiting for Loki to return. As though looking at it harder would speed his return, as though staring at it across this distance would assure her that nothing had gone wrong.

But it was all wrong.

She heard his voice within her head, whispering with a heart half-broken I cannot lift it. She saw him, in her mind, pinned beneath a frozen stone in the cold waste of Jotunheim and tried to shove the image away.

He must return, she thought, desperate.

A circle of tiny birds perched along a wide, stone basin and bathed merrily in the water. Sara watched them as they splashed and flittered, entirely indifferent to the fate of her master. She held out a finger to the little blue sparrow.

“There you are!”

The birds exploded from the basin in a flurry of chirps and rapid-beating wings. Sara startled. The voice came from right in front of her though she saw no one.

Glancing down, she noticed the face of Old Man Marckus looking up at her.

“Marckus!” His hair, still silver, floated upon the reflection of the water. His face, still tan and weathered. “By Odin, where are you?”

“This, dear girl, is the Sawreven. Very nice, yes? The image of a world has it’s own world and…I am weary as hell in it. How fare you, child?”

The picture of a world as a realm unto itself. The idea struck her so dumb with wonder that she couldn’t answer but just stare at Marckus as he spoke to her, hurriedly.

“It has been hell searching for you, my child. I have run through every image and reflection in Asgard hoping to find you alone. I am fugitive now, dear Sara, did you know? Is that not clever? I waited by your mirror for days and you did not appear! And there, whew – ” Marckus shook his head, confused. “There was magic all over the land on the o’er side of your mirror. Do you know that there’s a tapestry in the great hall that is seven miles wide? When I saw you were no longer servant, I spent half my life-force lingering there, hoping you would pass by. When I saw you in the mural it was a great fortune! But then I could feel your master sensing me and I had to flee. My business for you is not his concern – thank you very much.”

“Indeed, that was you.” Sara said, remembering. “I am sorry, I do not spend much time in the great halls or my old chambers.” She did not need to tell him whose chambers she spent most of her time in.

“You really must get out and find a hobby, my child.”

“Are you well?”

“By God, I’m not well, my dear. Not well at all. See, my blessed fowls gave me many omens – they warned me that the Arm was coming for me, but they did not tell me when. Useless. When I saw that toad Sveinn come for me, I pulled a spell of Vanish and Emerge and well, it is a tricky one – it takes mastery and, well, I did not quite pull off the Emerge bit. I’ve got myself quite stuck, my dear.”

Sara chuckled at Marckus’ clumsiness. She smiled – the rash, impatient fool. Playfully, she chided him.

“And I will die here, Sara, if I cannot get out to a realm – any realm. A mortal body is not meant to dawdle about in the Sawreven.”

At this, Sara worried. In her faint memory of him, she did not imagine that his life was in peril. Unless he returned to Asgard where Loki had threatened a severe fate for him. She would warn Marckus off of that route.

“I mean to get to Midgard.” He continued. “The waxen figure I gave you, it is my totem and I need you to melt it. Please be hasty about it. It’s a port of restorexion and…”

A few birds flittered back to the water, determined to continue their bath. They paddled happily across Marckus’ face. He sputtered and swatted at them with his hands, to no avail.

“Oh, hang those birds! Off with them!”

Sara fluttered her hands and the birds took off again. “A port of what?”

“Restorexion. No matter! Just melt it, child, I beg you! It will both resurrect and restore me to the place from which it was made. I have to be in mortal peril to use it and trust me, my child, I am in the gravest kind – I perish each day I am here.”

Already, this sounded to be magic dark, illegal and liable to land her in a whole world of trouble. She worried that the mere mention of such an item would send a team of sentinels on her again and with Loki gone, she could not be too careful. Sara looked around the balcony and seeing she was still alone, she leaned back over the basin.

“Marckus, please forgive me.” She spoke low. “But I do not possess your totem. It was taken from me.”

With regret, Sara told Marckus of the events that followed his disappearing act and he hung his head and went silent as she mentioned her fate in the Keep of Sala and The Shadow Realm, although she had taken care to leave out the worst of it and breeze past the tortures…and the Shadow. Marckus listened grimly and the light seemed to go out of his eyes.

“I have failed your mother, your father, your ancestors. My child, I am so sorry. I’ve come to ask for your help when I deserve none such aid.”

“You could not have known what would happen to me, Marckus. Please do not blame yourself.” Sara put her fingers to the water, but they went through his reflection. “I cannot get to your totem. It is locked in the Vault, along with my music box. If my master will not return that, he will surely not let me have it.”

His grim expression broke. The water bubbled as he sputtered out, baffled.

“What business has he with a silly old music box, pray?”

“Neither he, or the Arm, could open it. Loki says it contains a strange magic.”

“Of course they couldn’t open it.” Marckus waved a hand in dismissal and the water fluttered. “Only a Midgardian can open it. What, are they fools of the highest order? Who is running that kingdom? Is he an imbecile?”

“Marckus,” Sara smiled. “Please do not speak unkindly of him. I have opened it many times and I’m not Midgardian. Indeed it must have strange powers.”

Marckus sighed. He sighed so heavily that a crescent of water blew from the exhalation of his nostrils.

“My child…” he said, sorrowfully. “You are no more Otherlander than I am Bor creator of Realms.” He sighed again and eyed her sadly from the little pond of water. She stared at him, in shock, as he continued. “You were born on Midgard. Under the blue star. On a silver morning.”

Sara reeled slowly back from the basin as though it suddenly brimmed with poison.

Above her, just above, the two sister planets – one yellow, one blue – hung like ornaments from the sky. With the heart of a stranger, she gazed at them – gigantic, quiet and in near alignment with Asgard as they crossed in their orbits. Up there, upon one of those distant stars, the Seven Villages lay smoted, quiet and ravaged. The idea she was not born on either trembled upon her.

“Born…on Midgard?” In her mind, she saw her mother upon the rock, eyes sunken, her voice light and deep within her mind in the Shadow realm.

You are a child from so very, very far….

Regretfully, Marckus looked up at her, in silence – his eyes shimmering in the reflected water.

It was as if she’d always known this. It all came back to her. Upon the slope of dead rocks, her mother blew the spirit of Midgard into her, a spirit that Sara had never known. She’d crawled across the afterlife to protect her from the Shadow just a while longer to restore it, but why? She was to die anyway.

“Oh, Marckus.” Sara gasped. “Why did you never tell me?”

“You were in grief – dear child. Then, in hiding. Then, in servitude. What time was there to tell you? What good would it have done? Your fate on Asgard as a servant was better than scraping off the ravaged lands of the villages. Your mother would want a better life for you. If you were found out to be of Midgard,” Marckus shook his head. “You would’ve been thrown out of Asgard by your ankles to god knows where. As an Otherlander, you had the protection of Odin.”

Marckus had taken pains to withhold, but she would’ve kept her heritage secret as it had no effect on her life but would Loki have known? Did he know?

“The Arm would’ve done much worse to you for your magic than throw you out of Asgard.” Sara said, musing on the whereabouts of the man who tossed her in the Keep. Since her master took the throne, Sveinn had not been seen anywhere.

“You are right about that, dear child.” Marckus chuckled. “If braying to the king that I was of Midgard would’ve sent me back, I would’ve sung like the birds.”

“You did well, then, Marckus. I thank you.” Sara said. “You have my word that I will do my best to get your totem. I will ask my master.”

“No! You will not put yourself in danger, my child. Not for my sake. Not again.”

Sara went to protest that she was in no danger of merely asking Loki, but Marckus rose his hand and would not hear it.

“Do not underestimate him. I have seen many realms from here and trust me, dear girl, he is master of far more than just illusions.”

“Can you see Jotunheim from where you are?” Sara had barely heard the rest of what Marckus said. “Can you see him? Can you see Loki?”

“Of course not, child. I am in a blasted bird bath.”

“Oh.”

“But Frost Giants will breach Asgard once again. I had seen these portents before I vanished but could not warn you. I see they have not come yet. Do this old fool a dear favor and take caution – keep yourself safe. I will find another way out, my dear.” He smiled and waved his hand to her and before she could say goodbye, he popped from view and she was left staring at her own reflection, dark and shimmering in the water.

~

Fresh stars peeked out from above the snow-capped mountains.

As the sun crept toward the sea, she stood frozen to the high balcony where she stared at the tremendous silver joint of all the galaxies, the Bi-frost, its spire still and pointing out to the violescent horizon. As each moment passed and it did not awaken, she felt Marckus’ warning of the oncoming Frost Giants slide into her gut, slow and steady, fortifying her darkest fears that something had gone wrong in Jotunheim. For why else would they come? Why else would the dark omens, the bad feelings have rallied around her that Loki would not return to her? Why else would she hear his words – his last words – in her mind, calling out that he could not lift it?

Finally, she dropped her gaze from the bi-frost and lowered her head as the winds picked up and she meditated on Loki’s voice, trying to call out to him, to feel if he was alive. It was of no use. She had no powers. No senses. All she heard was the crash of the waterfall as it bellowed beneath her feet. The roar of it hypnotized her. She stared hard into its white tempest, its fathoms of power calling her down.

Then, the ground trembled.

A massive beam of light shot from the horizon and toward the bi-frost, jarring it to life in a thrashing dazzle of power that surged over the sea. Then, it slowly whirred back to a standstill. Sara jolted to attention and blinked, almost thinking she’d hallucinated it. The thought of Jotuns flashed through her mind and for a moment, she anticipated they would storm out of it.

Soon, she spied a dark blotch upon the bridge and it moved quickly from out the silver globe. She squinted and leaned farther over the balcony. It was no giant upon the bridge.

Just one lone figure.

It was Loki.

She gripped the ledge and exhaled a sweet, deep sigh of relief. She felt nearly drunk with it. The sky burned in splendor as every dark thought, her thoughts of Marckus, of her heritage flew away from her.

She gathered up her skirts and tore across the colonnade, leapt over the broken rift on the bridge and flew into his towers. But he did not appear there.

She tore down the stairs, rushed outside and waited for him to reappear by the arches that led to the Odinson grounds.

She waited longer, her heart thudding.

After a short time passed and still no sign of him, she rushed toward Odin’s palace. She cut a path behind the long galleys burning gold in the lowering sun as they ran along the river boasting fleets of stairs that led up to the open-pillared majesty of the Throne Room. As she hurried, her heart lifted and soared, that Loki was alive and unharmed…and returned.

Once she crossed into the public colonnade, she slowed her steps to blend in with crowd. She then spotted him.

Alone, he stalked toward the greater citadel. His head was bare of helmet but Gungnir glinted silver and hung parallel from his fist as he ascended the long, gilded stairs toward the main colonnade. Perpendicular to his path, she rushed from pillar to pillar, her heart aflame with relief, with joy, at the sight of him – safe and sound. She drew nearer, about to head him off where she planned to pass him by with just a silent look to say Welcome home and no more than that for the eyes of fellow subjects were upon him.

Drawing closer, she saw his face bent in a scowl. Seeing this, she stopped herself from intersecting him and quickly tucked herself back behind a column. With one hand upon it, she peeked around.

Loki lifted his head cat-quick and noticed her. Their eyes locked for but a second and the scowl began to leave his face when Erlingr and Borgnyr hailed him from the wide galley in the citadel. Loki’s eyes darkened and his jaw set as he stalked away in the opposite direction, leading the two men toward the Throne Room. His horned helmet morphed golden and slow across his head, hiding his face from her sight. He lifted his chin up and penetrated into the hall.

From behind a column Sara spied.

Below, Loki sat upon the throne, holding Gungnir aright. His face composed in such smug arrogance, his nose so far up in the air, it surprised her that he could even hear the men speaking to him from below the throne.

From her distance, she could not make out much of what they said but Loki’s voice was clear as it sliced and curled through the air and echoed. She could make out enough that it was a privy council of some kind and they were discussing Jotunheim and treaties.

Perhaps Frost Giants were on their way right now, she thought, and she wondered if she should tell him of Marckus’ omens and remembering Loki’s threat, thought the better of it. From her spying post, she watched Loki as the nobles pleaded and reasoned with him. Their tone as they spoke to their king struck her as a tad insolent. She had never been in a privy council, much less spied on one, but she imagined the nobles would never exhale in exasperation or roll their eyes at King Odin or even, perhaps, Lord Thor the way they did to Loki.

At one point, she heard Loki say, “I do not share your pity” and he leaned back into the deep, golden seat and threw his leg over the edge of it. Maybe the men had good reason to be insolent. Loki was not taking them seriously.

One of the nobles stepped forward, his hand held out in supplication, trying to reason with their new king.

“The bi-frost is closed.” Loki said and turned his head away, his signal that it was the end of the debate. “I have forbidden Heimdall to open it.”

This sent a rabble of activity down the line. A wine-boy had to pull the jug away quickly for it was almost knocked out of his hand as the line of nobles erupted in protest.

“Why?” the man questioned Loki.

“Why?” Loki repeated. He sat forward in the giant seat. “To…secure the protection of Asgard. It is, after all, my duty…as king.”

Loki lowered his horns at the man, who stepped back into the line and bowed his head.

“Is this all? I have an…” Under his lowered brows, his eyes flicked to the side and back again. “…urgent matter to get to.”

Hesitant but in one fluid motion, the nobles bowed and took their exit of Loki, save Borgnyr. He skitted forward, holding his hands and looking up at him on the throne.

“But, my liege. What of Lord Thor? If he – ”

Loki leapt from the throne, his face red. Spittle flew from his mouth as he yelled in a voice so loud that Sara flinched from the shock of it. She’d never heard Loki’s voice erupt to a full roar and it crashed over the entire hall like thunder.

“Lord Thor is banished and will not return! Get out!”

Borgnyr stumbled backward and hurried to join the other nobles who fled up the flight of steps that stretched along the grand hall. They did not dare look back at Loki who stood gripping Gungnir, his chest heaving as he watched them retreat while his echo swirled around the hall, danced upon the flames, then died.

Although they were gone, Loki stayed standing, looking in the direction from which they left, his body poised forward as though he expected them to re-appear at any moment and charge him in battle.

Holding her breath, Sara watched him standing alone in the barren hall. It was an unbearable silence until Loki’s voice, calm and level, finally broke it.

“You may come out now.” He said

Hesitantly, Sara stepped out from behind the pillar, embarrassed slightly that he detected her presence.

Preparing to apologize for spying on him, she crossed the wide, dark expanse that yawned before the dais of the throne. Gripping his sceptre, Loki rushed to her and, before she spoke, he slid an arm around her waist and pressed his mouth on hers in a hard kiss. She was too relieved to see him to bother that he tore at her lips a little too roughly.

“Whose eyes shall I rip out next?” Loki said, looking into hers. Thinking it was rhetorical, Sara only smiled softly at him but her lids fluttered when he shook her slightly and continued. “Whose gaze did you share while I was gone? Who did you smile at?”

“No one, your majesty.” Sara tensed in his arms and braced her hands upon his shoulders to look up at him. “No one.”

Loki looked down at her sidelong and studied her face. She did not know what he read there, but she feared for a moment that he sensed Marckus and the things he told her. She brought her eyes down to the crescent of gold upon his chest. She would not lie to him, if he asked.

“You seem altered.” Loki brought her in closer. “Did my absence kill you, my creature?” His arm clenched so tight around her waist that she struggled to breathe. It was an unyielding, fierce grip – harder than normal.

“I was worried. You were gone longer than a few hours, your majesty.” Sara said, her breath coming in light and shallow from the vice of his arm squeezing around her.

He smiled down at her and his eyes flashed in what Sara could only detect as relief. His grip loosened.

“I was delayed. I had a look around. The fool has made some new….” Loki’s lips pursed slightly as though he found his own thoughts amusing. “…friends.”

He ran his hand up Sara’s thigh and she tightened, and wetted, under his touch. He tilted his head and watched her mouth. “Why did you fear? You have so little faith in me.”

His expression darkened and Sara slid her hand up his neck to stop it. Under her touch, Loki blinked. Just slow enough that she thought he might close his eyes.

“Of course not, my king.” Sara looked over her shoulder to see they were alone. “Loki, I had such…” A laugh, soft and nervous wilted from her lips. “…bad feelings, bad omens that something would happen to you.”

Still holding his staff, Loki shot a glance around the palace and seeing they were quite alone, his palm tightened upon her leg as he kissed her again.

“’Omens’.” He repeated, a veil of contempt in his lips as they broke from hers. “Omens are the domain of fools. Superstitious…” Loki’s hand slid up to her hip and squeezed. “…vulgar… ” His mouth lingered upon her lips. “…fools. They have no place in your mind.”

Loki’s mouth, warm and feather-light, grazed along her jaw. Sara’s head fell back, in relief at the feel of them upon her once again.

“I heard your voice in my head, saying you ‘could not lift it’.” She said, a light laugh at her silliness. “It made no sense. It was but a dream and it was foolish, Loki, but I thought you might have been captured, pinned under a rock. I couldn’t bear the thought of you gone.”

His lips left her skin as he paused. He backed his head away to look at her and the smirk had left his face. His eyes darkened, then narrowed.

She looked at him, expectant that he would tell her what had transpired but rather he studied her eyes, uncertainly as though he distrusted what he saw there. Then, he broke into a flash of a grin – though an uneasy one.

“Oh, my creature. It would take a lot more than a rock to capture me.”

“So it worked?” Sara asked. “Your plan? Did it fare well?”

“Yes.” he said, but a little too rapidly. Something hesitant and regretful lingered in Loki’s face as he studied the ground and, for an uneasy moment, Sara wondered if he might have done something treacherous with his brother. She dismissed the thought for she knew he would not do such a thing. It was just a flash of uncertainty that flickered in Loki’s expression before brushing away. 

He brought his lips back to her neck and muttered, to himself more than to her, “What a game. Makes me sick.” She sighed again as his mouth searched her neck and the word “sick” rebounded in her mind as though she’d forgotten something.

Sick…sick….

Maddy.

The Sorelium healer was to come for her at sunset today. As Loki’s lips glided back toward her mouth, Sara glanced at the sky between the colossal pillars burning orange with the coming sunset.

“Is the bi-frost really closed, your majesty?” she asked.

“Yes.” Loki said, absently though his fingers tightened upon her leg.

Then through his teeth, he said. “Why?”

“My friend…your servant, Maddy…A healer from Sorelium is coming for her through the – ”

“The bifrost is closed.” Loki said, his lips brushing the side of her mouth. “It opens to no one.” 

“But, Lo – ”

His face drew before her now. His jaw set, his face still as stone. She placed a gentle hand on his arm and it did nothing in his eyes, for they looked at her from behind a wall so hard she could not tell that he even saw her.

He’s bared his teeth at her before, yes, but if it meant her happiness, he had relented. Been generous even. So she tried reason.

“My king,” she continued, carefully. “It is a rare ritual, the planets need to align just so and it takes so many suns for the time to be just right, she needs this now or else…”

“Or else what.” Loki’s shoulders flinched under his cape as he shrugged, his face blank. “She dies?”

She looked up at him, startled by his indifference to his own servant. Maddy had worked his grounds for years; he’d even spoken to her but a trace of this couldn’t be found on his face, or his tone. He didn’t even say her name.

Taking her stunned silence for incomprehension, Loki leaned toward her and repeated as though she didn’t quite hear him clear the first time. “She dies?”

His thin lips slid up his teeth and around the word.

“Y-yes, she may, yes.”

“So…” His eyes danced from side to side, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world and Sara missed it. “She dies.”

“She’s my friend – ”

Loki barely disguised a sneer at that word, friend, as he turned away from her.

Your majesty, my king, as you wish – these all had worked with him before.

He flipped back to her, gripping his staff.

“The whole of Asgard and your ‘friend’’s life both hang on a thread and you bother to ask which I choose.”

“Is it, Loki?” Sara rushed to him, and touched his arm again, in placation, worried that he had indeed made matters worse in Jotunheim. “Is it on a thread? Have you closed the bi-frost for our safety?”

Oh, god what if they all came? She thought. With Odin asleep, could Loki and the armies of Asgard fight even half of them on their own?

In a flourish, Loki shook off her hand and turned from her again.

“The bi-frost opens for no one, I have made myself clear. Do not quarrel me.”

Loki’s eyes darted across the ground and she saw a wave of some uncertainty glimmer inside them.

The pillars blazed orange as the sun began to set.

“I do not quarrel, my king.” She dared stroke his arm again as she softly reassured him that it was but her friend’s wellfare that she pleaded, not a doubt in his judgement, not a doubt in him.

As Loki listened to her, his grip on the staff was so tight that his knuckles turned pale upon it and his chest heaved as though a storm brewed inside of it.

For a moment, blue slid across his irises and overtook the green glow that had already kindled at her words. In his eyes, she saw the brink of softening, of actually seeing her.

Then the massive doors opened. They reverberated like a crash in her ears for the sound of them startled Loki’s attention away from her at the precise moment she needed it most. She shut her eyes and exhaled in vexation as Loki quickly drew up his height and paced away from her toward the center of the hall. He leaned on the weight of the staff and cocked a knee before the throne as though the young pageboy who hurried up to him intended to charge right past him and sit himself upon it.

Sara turned away as the boy knelt, rose and then spoke to Loki about those who came to call on his majesty while he was absent. She crossed her arms and stared out in the direction of the Odinson towers, silhouetted like two twin giants against the sun as it sank. There Maddy waited. Waited for the healer who would not come. Sara shut her eyes, unable to bear the thought. Maddy was proud, but she was good. She had shown her kindness. She labored hard for the realm. And she was her friend, her only friend left here.

“I delivered your message, my liege, on Borgnyr’s behalf.”

“So…?” Loki’s voice rose, but did not yell. With rushing breath, Loki said. “I’ll have you flogged. Where are they?”

“We do not know but they could not have left the realm, my liege. I’ll search the taverns.”

“Get out.” Loki muttered through his teeth and with a flick of his cape, he marched up the stairs and sulked on the throne.

The boy passed by Sara as he hurried through the pillars, his eyes daring to glance at her with a sullen look as to say Sorry I was even born.

Sara felt much the same as she watched him hurry out into the citadel, though she wished he had not come at all for Loki now sat upon the throne, sulking.

“My King…” she said, approaching him. Silently, he glowered at her as she walked up the flight of stairs, moved across the landing and paced up the next flight of steps, her hands out in appeal. She knelt before him. “Will you please open the bi-frost? For me, Loki. Just this once. She’s my friend.”

It was unseemly to cry in this realm. Sara had witnessed a young child learn this the hard way on her first day in Asgard. Against her will, tears rose in her lids as she bent her head and tried to control them, but the struggle made it worse. She was able to just repeat the word “please.”

Loki leaned forward and tapped his staff on the ground.

“Enough.” He said.

He slid his fingers under chin and made her look at him.

“What has gotten into your blood, my creature?” He looked between both her eyes. “When I first saw you, all your kind groveled like dogs at my brother’s feet. But you stood apart and did not grovel. You did not beg like some wretch. That’s how I noticed you, so low and yet above all the peasants and their scrambling. Look at you now.” He looked at her, disgusted. “Asgard lies in jeopardy and you snivel before me, for some mortal, some nothing.” He spit the word.

This was too much for her. Maddy may be mortal but she was not nothing. His words sickened her heart and she felt torn in two directions.

She gripped his hand and pressed her cheek against it.

“It’s not for Asgard, you do this.” She swallowed hard, refusing to look at him. She couldn’t bear the repulsion in his eyes as he looked at her, or the cruelty in his words. “But for your pride.”

She moved his hand from her face, turned away from him and descended the long flight of stairs below the throne.

She would dare beg him no longer, if it disgusted him so. But she could at least go to her friend and be with her so that she was, at least, not alone while she waited for help that would not come. This she could do.

Before she cleared the last stair, Loki appeared below her with his arms locked behind him, his chin thrust in the air.

She gave him a curtsey, a by-your-leave, as she went to move around him but he just vanished from the air and re-appeared right before her again.

Sara looked back to throne. It was not empty. Loki sat upon it still and his lips thinned as a grin spread wide across his teeth.

She turned to the other Loki who stood before her. He smirked. The two of them were barely indistinguishable.

Confused, she looked back to Loki on the throne. A low, rolling laugh trickled from his mouth.

“May I leave, your majesty?” she said.

Loki said nothing. Sara cleared her throat, carefully and said, “Can I leave or will that threaten the safety of Asgard, as well?”

“You are unwise to test me now, Sara. You may leave when I say. And…” Loki twirled the staff. “…I have not said.”

His wretched mood was so twisted by whatever foul storms stirred in him and Maddy may die because of it. At that precise moment, she nearly hated him. Nearly.

Still looking at him and as civil-like as she could muster, Sara clasped her hands upon her gown and turned her back to him and went to glide past his clone. He was mere illusion, anyway, a ghost that she could just pass through and –

He grabbed her by the arm. The solidity of him took her off-guard as he dragged her up the stairs. His strength was harder than Loki’s and she stumbled to her knees as he let go of her.

Sunken back into the throne, Loki’s voice rang out soft and quiet, though his eyes were full of dangerous things.

“Your tone displeases me.” He said.

“I never want to displease you, my king.” She took care to speak slow and careful but she could hear loathing brim in her voice, against her will.

Her fury at him was brand new and it was something he could detect with senses that picked up lies and deceits from a thousand miles away. His eyes burned at her. They burned hotter than the torches that blazed behind him on the massive chair of Odin’s throne.

As she lowered her head, a sensation came over her as though she were a heavy boulder on the thinnest ice. Her words, her tone, even her breath could snap it from underneath her. Her eyes averted, careful to not reveal, she softly requested.

“My king, may I leave?”

He smirked in reply.

After a long, interminable silence of staring at her, Loki finally said with a light mocking in his tone. “Is this anger?”

“No, L-…” she wanted to call him by name but she could feel the ice cracking below her, groaning to break underneath them both and unleash something perilous. She had never seen his eyes as still and black and burning as they were now, looking upon her like a mighty jaw about to slam down upon her neck.

She swallowed and kept her eyes down.

“No, my king. Not anger.” She lied.

Loki leaned forward, his eyes firing. His hand was no longer warm and welcome to her skin. It was clammy and wet upon her neck as he stroked his thumb up her skull and across the peak of her spine. She heard the strands of her hair crunching beneath his thumb as he trailed it back and forth beneath her hair.

“Oh, I think it is.” Loki bared his teeth in a smile. “It eats at you. Let’s free you of it, shall we?”

Behind her, the other Loki pressed her forward so that her head lingered between Loki’s knees which spread far apart as he leaned back into the throne again.

“Not anger, your majesty.” Sara said, carefully, her eyes level with his lap. “I could never be angry with you, my king. I wish only to take my place by my friend’s side.”

“Your place?” Loki said. The horns upon his head slanted down. “This is your rightful place. Upon your knees.”

The other Loki sauntered up the steps, perched one foot on a stair and watched her with blank eyes.

“Leave us.” Loki said, his eyes fluttering up and to the side of her.

Loki stared at her as the two Eternal Guards on either side of them marched forward from their place before the mighty throne of Asgard. They had been so silent and still that Sara had forgot they were even there. Holding their scepters aright, they descended the stairs. Watching Loki’s eyes, which burned through her with an alien rage, Sara listened to the retreat of the guard with trepidation. Their footfalls ticked upon the palace floor scrff – scrff – scrff as they marched toward the grand doors. Sara felt herself wishing they would not leave.

She looked between his clone and him.

The firelight refracted and danced on the gilded seat underneath Loki’s pale fingers – one of which he tapped against it, watching her – and it cast a silhouette of his horned helmet upon the golden walls behind him. In sweeping arcs, the shadows from his horns towered above her, so high it looked as though a giant was in the room. The other Loki cast no shadow and she looked at him, trembling, as she calculated her choices.

Giving into his desires now could bring him to his senses, she thought, perhaps it could pacify him but there was a raw and fevered light in her master’s eyes that she had not seen before.

She leaned forward.

Loki’s fingers webbed across the back of her neck as he pulled her head toward his lap.

From beside the throne, the second Loki watched her in silence and a relishing grin spread across his face.

Still holding the scepter in one hand, Loki held her head steady with the other as she undid him from his codpiece, tremulously, as though a monster were to leap out and devour all three of them upon the throne.

With one hand, Loki drove her head up and down upon his lap. With his other hand, he grasped and re-gripped the scepter as his fingers grew hot with sweat and lost their grip. 

Loki’s eyes slid shut and his head fell back under the rapture of her mouth upon him. The horns of his helmet tilted backward over the throne. His lips unlocked themselves, lingered open and quivered as he winced, and exhaled, and growled and gritted his teeth from the pleasure, amplified twice, of both receiving and watching her.

After some time, Loki opened his eyes – green and blazing – and watched her mouth as it rose and fell upon him. “You look so beautiful like this, my creature.”

As night approached, Sara serviced him upon the throne and the other Loki watched her with a silent grin, his eyes occasionally darting around the pillars, sensing visitors. But none such came.

Sara fought to breathe, to get some relief but Loki’s long fingers, slick with sweat, would just grapple upon her neck and clench tighter if she so much as moved an inch from what he demanded. The only respite he gave was to let her brace her palms on the leather-mounds of his knees while she struggled to take in all of him, in the fevered, beating rhythm he demanded.

“Do not waste a drop of me.” Loki said, through gritted teeth. In a hard exhale, labored and violent, Loki expelled himself.

Immediately, he pulled her head back and Sara swallowed and gasped for air, her eyes brimming with water as she looked up at him.

“You are not finished.” Loki said, his eyes far away. Worlds away. She saw no hunger, no delight or tenderness in them as the other Loki knelt behind her, pried her from his grasp and tenderly slid his hands up the front of her gown before tearing it open in a rip of silk that echoed along the silent hall. By her knees, he dragged her back slow and the cold marble met her bare breasts as he bent her low upon the stairs, flipped up her gown, parted her legs with the back of his hands and pushed into her.

The might of him was different – like two tectonic plates grinding against her body, molting her down to a shred. She gasped aloud and clutched the stairs for support as he rutted into her madly – too madly. It felt as though her bones would shatter. She bit her lip from the pain as he pounded upon her, hard and fast. Unlike her master, this Loki’s breath rained cold upon the back of her neck as he exhaled a low, sinister laugh every time she writhed away under the sheer, unrelenting force of him. She twisted, groaned and struggled as her wetness evaporated under his frenzied power. He did not taper, or control.

From the throne, Loki ran his fingers along his mouth as he watched himself take her upon the stairs.

“Do not fight your king.” Loki said, his voice devoid of delight or mischief. It was stern, passionless and it echoed flat and lifeless in her ears as the other Loki thrashed into her wild and unchecked. He climaxed into her and the grip upon her waist clenched so hard that she felt her ribs would crack and she screamed out in pain. Her mind was awash with him and he crawled into every crevice of her and she could not shake him out. Her thoughts became his and it was as though the gods had smashed a kaleidoscope into her mind and every reflection was his. Ghastly, torn apart, venomous, demonic.

Her limbs loose, her mind astray, she could not struggle as Loki flipped her upon her back and started into her again.

And again. And again.

Long after nightfall, he was done with her.

As the people of Asgard made up their beds, as the servants of their halls fed the torches, Sara was lifted up and released to Loki upon the throne.

Half-conscious, she slid from his lap and collapsed at his feet, broken as a doll shook apart by a dog.

Quickly, Loki yanked her up as though the ground would burn her and he must protect her at all costs. Like a marionette, Sara flopped half-lifeless in his arms. Manic, wild with his toy, Loki braced her upright for if he didn’t hold her she’d collapse again.

The scepter fell in a clatter as Loki cradled Sara into him upon the giant throne and ran his long hand up her hair as he whispered in her ear. His words ran like strange music, warped bells in her mind. It was his voice but not his voice. She could not open her lids without effort.

“Do you see?” Loki whispered rapid and frantic into her lips. “Do you see…do you see, Sara…”

Her vision distorted, she tried to open her lids and look into his eyes. With one final strain she managed to. What she saw in them broke her heart and she knew she must be in a dream: his eyes were neither blue, nor green but devoid of color and there was nothing in them she recognized. Not even malice – they were empty. Pure madness.

With what tiny strength she had in her limbs, half-delirious herself, Sara lifted a finger to Loki’s face and traced it across the part of his cheek still exposed from behind his helmet.

Her jaw was swollen shut so her lips barely moved. She whispered so inaudibly that Loki leant his head to hear his toy speak to him and his frenzied smile trembled as though she were to tell him a glorious secret.

“I cannot see you, Loki. You are hidden from me now.”

He looked at her incomprehensible. For a second, his fevered grin turned downward as her words struggled to dawn and make sense in his dark-riddled mind. He moved to start into her again, when suddenly he stopped and shot his head up toward the doors.

From the other side of them, someone called out “Your majesty!” followed soon after by the sound of his mother’s voice.

His eyes wild, Loki froze – still as a cat – and stared at the doors as though a comet was about to hurtle through them at any moment and incinerate them both.

Frigga’s voice echoed, sweet and strong, and Sara saw Loki waver at the sound of it.

“He is my son and I will not wait to speak with him.” Frigga’s voice rang out.

His clone vanished into the air. The manic smile flew from Loki’s face as his eyes snapped back to blue. He leapt from the throne, holding her in his arms still. He scanned the air around him, blinking rapid and panting heavily, as though he did not know where he was. Her eyes half-closed she saw Loki look down at her, in horror, his eyes dashing back and forth across her limp and battered body, confused. He darted his head back to the doors.

“Open them at once!” Frigga said.

His power worn-out, Loki tensed his arms, shut his eyes tight and conjured just enough of it to pulse Sara from his arms and into the thin air.

His magic was weaker and so she evaporated slow. As she vanished, she saw Loki stand up straight, his eyes blank and fearful as he said.

“Hello, mother.”

~ 

The ravens bark above the din

The plain ran red with blood…

Sara lurched from the water and gasped for air.

In the dark gloom of morning, the fires danced in their urns. Steam rose from the floors of the Lady’s Baths and the healing waters swirled warm and unhindered around her body though the air was cold as steel. Sara could not tell if it were evening or noon.

A cold rag ran across her head as Gedr quieted her back down into the water. Hekr paused her strumming on the lute, looked to Gedr for a signal she was to assist and seeing none, she leaned back into the window ledge and drag her fingers across the lute – her voice sweet and high.

Shields rung out and split asunder

so fought the mighty Thor…

Sara winced as she sat upright. Pain shot up her spine, across her hipbones, her rib cage. Her jaw ached and it was so stiff she had to struggle to speak but Gedr Shhh’d her and coaxed her to drink the elixir in her hands.

Gedr’s face was stern as Sara wrapped shaking fingers around the goblet and swallowed its healing powers, tasting of grape, sap and the faint touch of metals. She noticed the uneasy glances that passed between Gedr and Hekr.

“You’ve been here since last night, m’lady.” Gedr said in a hush of a voice.

Little is lost

for men who die well…

The elixir invigorated her senses. With a surge of light, it cleared her mind of the dark visions that Loki’s mad state infused in her. It sped along her blood and liberated her body from the pain that retreated, minute by minute, along with the bruises.

“How?” Sara asked.

So fought the brave and true

and mighty Thor…

“You just appeared in the Healing Room, m’lady. You were barely sentient. I tended to you then brought you here. You were too weak for a bed. Then he came.” Gedr’s eyes glowered, stern and angry. For a moment, Sara was alarmed as to what man entered for it was unusual for a Lady’s maid to refer to the king as “he” but as the venom boiled under Gedr’s soft tone, Sara realized she was speaking of none other than Loki. “He relieved me of my service for the evening and watched over you until dawn. I am sorry, m’lady to have left you but I could not disobey. When I returned I saw no more harm had come to you so praise Odin for that. We have been tending to you since dawn.”

Gedr’s face was still, loaded with such controlled anger that Sara worried she would ignite. She leaned in close and with a motherliness that both alarmed and silenced Sara, Gedr whispered.

“We must stay strong, my lady, in the cruelties of men.” And, as Hekr stopped playing the lute, Gedr dropped her whisper even lower. “There are ways to assist.”

Sara averted her eyes from her, in fear she would cry.

“I thank you.” Sara said, quickly and quietly, ashamed that Gedr would be brought into this. Loki’s rage upon her body will be the talk of the kitchens by sunrise. “Tell no one, if you would be so kind.”

Gedr nodded in accord.

No one could aid, she thought. Even he did not know what he’d done. She did not want another lady to stand between her and Loki’s tempest and fall victim to it either. She needed to see Maddy at once.

The morning air – damp and cold – clung to her wet limbs as Sara shivered her way into the folded silks of the gown. Gedr was tender in her dressing, more than usual. Sara fought to push the thoughts of last night from her head and focus on getting to Maddy’s side before Loki came upon her in another rage. To test what mood he may be in at the moment, she asked Gedr what his temperament was while he watched over her. Gedr’s face darkened, in disapproval. 

“He just stood there, quiet, my lady. Like he was holding vigil. He said not a word.”

Quietly, Sara thanked her and felt only a glimmer of relief that she may get to the servant cottages and Maddy, unimpeded.

Hekr held out bracelets and neckpieces for her to choose and Sara stared at them for a long time and didn’t speak.

“M’lady?”

They lay out in her hand – rich, opulent, the ornaments of prestige.

She wanted none of it.

Her hair still damp from the springs and un-done, Sara rushed from the Ladies palace. She did not see Hekr lower her head as she left the chamber.

Sara’s footfalls hushed and echoed along the marble floors. The dawn servants, extinguishing the night torches, glanced at her over their shoulders as she quietly hurried by. She felt anxious not by their gaze but by the quickness with which they revoked it when she looked at them.

When Sara neared the Odinson grounds, the sun came out, burning through the morning fog. She tried to brighten her expression. Nearing the servant’s garden, she glanced down at her chest and hoped the elixir would clear the bruises upon her skin (just faint discolorations now) before she entered the servant’s court. Sick or not, Maddy would surely see them and Sara did not want to alarm her.

The archways of the kitchens were quiet as Sara passed.

As she drew closer to her old hut, Maddy’s hut, she saw a group of servants lingering outside the door. Half of them she recognized from Lord Thor’s towers, a few from Frigga’s. As she picked up her steps and drew closer, she did not need to ask why they were there for their faces told her everything.

Either Maddy had spoken well of her or they heeded her status as Citizen for Sara was not sure why the servants cleared the doorway at the sight of her. Speedily and with reverent faces they shuffled out of her way and watched her as Sara, numbly, kicked the mud from her slippers so as not to track it onto Maddy’s rug.

She entered the hut and stood in the dusty shafts of sunlight that poured through the small window that opened out toward the sea. One of the tavern-maids stood by it, weeping into her hand.

A mystic crouched by Maddy’s cot, reciting an old prayer.

Quietly, Sara took three slow steps toward the cot as though any quicker, the floor would creak and Maddy would wake up in a flurry of cursing.

But Maddy did not wake. Or stir.

Beneath her yellow blanket, Maddy lay with eyes closed. Lines covered her face where the virus had stretched a web over her little mind and all the veins that led to it with a force that finally stopped her sturdy and beating heart.

Her hands, small and chubby still, rested upon her chest. They folded neatly atop each other, busy no more.

“We just found her like this, this morning.” The kitchen maid said from the door. “We called for a Yendil, but it was too late. We did not know her gods, so we called a mystic.”

Numb, Sara looked to her.

“That was kind.” She said, though she did not know why. Her own voice sounded hollow and dull in her ears.

Her eyes fell from the maid’s face back to the cot and hot tears burned in her throat. She swallowed hard to keep them down. It was unseemly to cry on Asgard, even in the face of death.

“Was anyone here with her?” she asked

The maid slowly nodded her head ‘no’ but then, remembering, she spoke with a hint of gossip already kindling in her voice. “The Liason was here, a bit odd.” Her casual tone cracked the air around Sara as the maid continued, “But he left at nightfall.”

Sara shut her eyes tight as sorrow and rage pooled in her chest – it was a rage that she’d never felt in her whole life. It blazed as though it would burn right through her throat and set her aflame like a sun. It was not her place to feel rage. She was not allowed it.

“She died alone.” Sara said it so quiet that she may have just thought it. She swallowed hard again as the tears rose up her throat at the thought of Maddy here upon the cot, alone, and away from her native land as she took her last breath, with not a soul to keep her company, to hold her hand as it sped away to her ancestors.

The mystic was not done with his ritual so Sara was put outside with the rest of the servants. Hollowed, she walked away from them and around the cottage to Maddy’s flowerbed. She’d just been here yesterday.

She sat before it.

The earth was still damp with rain from the night before last. The mud and wet grass soaked into the rich silks of her gown and Sara did not notice or care. She looked up at Loki’s tower, looming high.

Sara pulled her gaze from it and stared at the ground.

A few dandelions bobbed in the breeze.

She then dropped her head into her palms and wept.


	9. Tales from Asgard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timeline to Thor (film): Events in this chapter take place up to Loki's fall from the bifrost and shortly thereafter.
> 
> (thanks for reading! This fic's posted on we-band-of-fangirls[dot]tumblr{dot]com. if you like, come visit!)

Rivers stretched like veins around the beating heart of Asgard.

From the Citadel in the center, its palaces and balconies open to the airs and unafraid of siege, to the South where the night-dark sea roared to the edge of the world, the rivers sang loud as they carved through the kingdom, carrying the power to break apart, to re-join, and break apart again wherever they wished.

A thin river branched from the citadel. Under the gilded heights of the city, it sprouted West determined to join the waterfalls that gushed beneath the Odinsons towers a short distance away, a good run on mortal foot.

Along the river’s bank, the servants gathered. They carried silks in the colors of Asgard. They tugged flowers from their own gardens and, in hurried quiet, dropped fistfuls of them into the boat.

In silence, Sara tucked three dandelions into Maddy’s hands.

The oil maid lit the flames.

In silence, Sara backed away as the kitchen boys untied the ropes and heaved the tiny boat into the river. It cantered at first – gliding this way, then that – before finding purchase on the gushing mid-river tide.

Her face open to the sky, Maddy drifted.

In silence, Sara watched the boat slipped past them under the dark cloak of trees.

Liason Swift stood behind the gathering, his head lowered. He said not a word. None of them knew the songs of the Hill-folk. Those hymns could not be sung for her – so they all gave Maddy their bowed heads and their quiet.

Many servants came out onto the stone stepped moorings that ran along the river. In the fading light, they looked like ghosts – their faces blank and solemn as the tiny boat sped past. In the custom gestures of their own homelands, they paid homage to Maddy. Some raised their hands, others knelt. When the boat passed him by, the winemaster took off his cap and lowered his gray head.

They risked punishment. But they snuck away from their labors to see off one of their own. And there were many of them. More than Sara imagined Maddy ever knew. Though the tide was cold, she took warmth from that fact. Maddy deserved to be taken to her land, buried in the rites of her people but despite the Liason’s request, the gates of Asgard remained closed in the threat of Jotunheim.

Overhead, people ambled along the balconies. When Sara caught their eyes, she noticed how they curiously looked to her, dressed in a regal gown of emerald, before studying the small group around her, puzzled by the connection between a Citizen of the Eternal Realm to the lower kind. They paid no mind to the procession.

The servants had to hurry back to their duties. Silently, they broke around Sara as she stared at the river and wondered where Maddy’s soul would go. She could not find any place good enough for a soul like hers. Would the realm of Shadow claim it? Though it felt like lifetimes ago, it had been but days since she herself had roamed its land, had felt the eyes of the dead upon her, felt the ash of time choke her as it sealed away all life and memory, save one - the feel of a hand upon hers.

But no such hand, or voice, would come to Maddy. And Sara lowered her head and prayed to the goddess of her village – who only looked over harvests – that she could guide her soul some place kinder and softer than such a place.

As the last of the servants cleared, Sara was left alone on the bank with a scarier thought – that perhaps Maddy’s soul would just go nowhere, into blackness.

She gazed up at the sky. It was a beautiful sky but dangerous, teeming with the exhaust of millions of stars. Masses of stars, their gasses thick as clouds as they fought for space in the heavens.

Above her the heights of Asgard towered like sharp teeth and the kingdom a jaw that would swallow all the simple souls, like Maddy, down its throat.

“She saw the wild hunt.” A voice said behind her.

Sara turned to see Swift. His arms crossed, he watched the river, too, but his expression was far darker than the night.

“The horsemen, the chase…” He frowned.

His words snapped her out of her daze, but she did not know his meaning. Seeing this, Swift struggled to jar her memory.

“The day she came down with fever?” He said. “She spoke of a darkness that would come to Asgard. In her visions, she saw the Hunt.”

Sara faintly remembered. It had felt so trivial then – nothing more than one of Maddy’s drunken ramblings.

“Whether it be dreams or sight, for a mortal to see the Wild Hunt foretells calamity…” Swift continued. He shuddered. From either his thoughts or the chill of the river, she wasn’t certain. His face darkened as he added “…or the end.”

A silence fell between them and the torrent of the river filled the inside of it.

Sara ran his words around her mind. Did Maddy foresee darkness overtaking her, the end of her life? Or did she see it for Asgard?

“ ‘Calamity and the end’.” Sara repeated his words then looked to him. “The end of what, m’lord?”

Swift nodded his head in the negative and looked at her, grave.

“M’lady, I do not know.”

A young page walked onto the dock and bowed before Sara. Swift looked at him with a vague veil of insult as the young man carried the importance of the palace in his bearing.

“I am sorry to beg interruption at a time such as this.” The page said. “But I must. His majesty requires your presence.”

Sara crossed her arms and gazed back at the river, trying to hold herself in and show no sign of irritation. She nearly tutted in annoyance, but she checked herself. Of all times, Loki would ask for her now.

And the words “his majesty” grated inside her. They were words for the throne, for his sickened rage upon it last night. She recoiled at the image. In her deepest heart, she knew that whoever sat upon the throne last night was not him. Not the Loki she recognized, nor the one she wanted to see at that moment, much less be beckoned for.

Unsure which of him would meet her, she followed the page to the citadel.

She did as she was bid to do.

She cast a look backward over to Swift. He was staring at the river again.

**

The guards opened the doors. Dignity forced her chin to stay parallel with the floor. She shivered as she entered. The hall was high and wall-less with only columns to break the tide of the towering winds. Just ahead, it stretched to a long balcony that jutted out to the blue-back skies. To her left, a long wrought-iron wall separated her from a private area.

Fires burned on bronze podiums, their flames tinged in green.

Loki sat at the head of a long table. Dark drapes covered it. Instead of pumpkins and gold apples, the usual ornaments of a royal’s dinner, there were black cakes and tiny ice sculptures that twinkled in the flames. Meats of wild rather than domestic animals spread across the table; beasts and birds that roamed free and un-hunted in distant hills now lay raw and in slices upon his plates.

Loki didn’t look up as the doors clanked shut. He didn’t look up at the sound of her footsteps on the floor.

If he were sullen, she would be cautious. If he were not, she would still be cautious. She did not want a repeat of the night before, however out of his wits he may’ve been.

Keeping her voice soft, she addressed him. Once she spoke, Loki roused from his thoughts and stood up immediately. His hands hung stiff by his sides as he watched Sara drop into a low – but clinical – curtsey. His palms tilted slightly open toward her, as though anticipating a sudden rush from her. When none came, he cleared his throat and extended his arm for her to have a seat across from him. Without a word, he sank into the chair.

Carefully, she took her chair.

Though she once spent her mornings helping Maddy prepare his meals, she’d never seen her master eat. Indeed, she did not see him eat now. Throughout the dinner, Loki alternated between merely toying with the meat upon his fork – twirling it before his eyes and cocking his head at her, in curiosity of her silence – before dropping it and sinking back into his chair, sliding his hand across his face as though disgusted by the food before him.

He did not mention Maddy’s death and she wondered if he even knew. Or cared. She answered his questions, in kind, but gave no talk otherwise.

His mood may be black, but hers was blacker.

Loki watched as Sara hardly touched her plate – drinking only from the heavy goblet. He asked if she were not hungry.

“Forgive me, your majesty, I am not hungry - no.”

“You are tired.” His voice trilled low as it poured across the length of silence between them. A long length. “Your spirits seem…weakened.”

She peeled her gaze from the wretched plate to look at him. Careful not to do so for too long so he wouldn’t interpret it as a glower – which it was. She dropped her eyes back and faintly nodded in the affirmative that this was true.

“Odd.” Loki said, lightly. “The healing room should have revived them.”

Her cheeks burned with the memory of what sent her to the healing room in the first place. Last night wasn’t him – she forced herself to believe it – but his blasé tone hit her too hard. She pushed the plate away. It clinked against the silver.

She could stomach his tyranny to her, but that tyranny had now hurt someone dear. A tiny boat slid out to sea, carrying a soul once-living. And Loki was to blame for it.

Abruptly, he sat upright.

“You are underfed.” He said, resolved. “Perhaps I can call for something I know you will eat.”

He raised a finger and a palace maid appeared from the shadows. Sara recognized her face; she’d seen it before – she was sure of it. The candlelight hit her eyes before the maid bowed her head. Her name was Jarcquel. She was once Thor’s head cook but now she wore the dark robe of table service – a strong demotion for a tower cook. Wordless and proud, Jarcquel avoided Sara’s glance as she placed a plate of fruit before her, bowed again and returned to the shadows.

Sara looked down at the glistening berries bleeding red upon the dish.

They were strawberries, a Midgardian fruit. Was this a jest? Did he know she was born on Midgard and meant to toy with her? She could not bluff as well as him so she merely glanced up and forced a smile.

“There.” With lips closed, Loki sort of grinned and blinked his eyes – as though this pretense of normalcy amused him. “I thought you would like that.”

His smirk made her cheeks burn.

“I am not hungry, your majesty.” She retorted, quick.

He looked perplexed. “You liked them enough at the feast? They are quite rare.”

Across the candle glow of the table, she couldn’t read him. His face was like a busted clock, beautiful and regal but with all the bits out of joint. She could not tell if he was playing at something or if his lightness of tone was genuine.

She took a small bite of the yellowed end, unripe. It tasted bitter. She forced a smile. “You are very generous, your majesty.” She said, carefully, and placed the

strawberry back on the plate.

His eyes flickered between her and the plate. Then he looked down and exhaled a half-laugh, more to himself than her, as though he just discovered something obvious and it amused him.

With an air of elegance, he pushed away from the table.

Sara tensed.

With arms clasped behind his back, Loki slowly walked toward her end, his eyes lighting on her face as though she’d kept a naughty secret from him. On her lap, she held her hands together tightly and braced for the unexpected.

Instead, Loki knelt before her. The leather of his suit creaked slightly.

His eyes glistened as he looked up at her. They were blue and bright, clear as the skies of other worlds. But his arms slid up the sides of her chair with the slow, treacherous grace of a snake.

“Tell me.” Loki whispered. “What troubles you?” His expression was pleading, innocent even, as he searched her face. He took her hand into his and brought his head low to it. With lips thin as blades, he kissed her fingers and as though the touch of them left a wound he caressed the spot where they touched her.

She scanned his face – it was free of peril, of treachery but she could find no trace of apology in it; nor even a knowledge of what he’d done last night. He was either unaware or tremendously cruel. Words fully escaped her, though she hunted for them under his burning gaze.

“You do not know how you torment me.” Loki said, closing another hand over hers.

Nor you me, she thought. But where was her voice?

Her heart thudded in her ribs. She felt on the brink of exploding. His soft eyes called for her to speak freely, but her memories of last night called her to tread careful.

Reading her reticence, Loki drew his hands toward his chest and slid his palms outward.

The little armored sash materialized in the air, hovering between them. Even in the glinting light, it looked dull now - an empty trinket. The etching of the serpent was as faint as a sketch, an afterthought.

Loki plucked it from the air and shook it gently before her eyes, as though coaxing a child.

“Look.” He said. “I’ll keep it over my heart.”

It was the nearest to sentiment she’d ever seen from him. He’d disposed of it so lightly when she gave it that it surprised her he even remembered.

He trained his eyes upon her face, searching for some reaction she could not know or give. Did he want her to fall on the ground and thank him for holding dear her gift – useless now in his hands? What was he looking for?

Her words and feelings – when rising against him – only brought danger so she kept her eyes low and muttered. “Very well, my king.”

Whatever Loki waited for did not come forth. As though doused with cold water, the earnest light on his face went out.

He slid his hand across the sash and, in a shimmer, vanished it back into nothing. He nearly looked disappointed so Sara hurried out the most carefully-delivered truth she could muster.

“My friend is dead, your majesty.” She said.

She’d sensed a pocket of safety and it was a safe statement, was it not? It was true and un-accusing.

“And you grieve her.” Loki stated it. His tone was so casual, the expression in his eyes nearly bored – as though he hoped her caginess was due to something far more exciting. Reading this, Sara wanted to wrench her hand away from him, but there was still warmth in his palms, tenderness in his face.

“Yes.” She replied. Only.

“As leader of this realm, I cannot be soft. My father was not, nor will I be.” Loki said. He then dropped his voice low and quiet – as though the shadows themselves may be eavesdropping and he didn’t want them to hear. “My love, do you not see it yet?”

His hand tightened upon hers and, in reflex, Sara tensed. Loki slithered his other hand down her leg toward her ankle where the thick, gold band held her mother’s gift – the three long blades from the Shadow realm. To her relief, he paused his hand at her calf and softly caressed it with his thumb.

By hand and leg, she was cuffed by him and enthralled to the mystery between his face and his words – sincerity on one and guile in the other.

“We are alike – you and I.” Loki said, searching her face for signs that this lesson was finally burned into her mind. But he was powerful and beautiful and beyond – she saw no similarity between herself and him.

“You have always been alone.” Loki continued, his voice quiet and urgent across each syllable of his words. “And you belong to me…”

There was blood in his words, but they were true. It stabbed her and she tore her gaze away from his and back down to her lap.

“…and you should grieve for no one but me.”

At this, she froze. She blinked a few times as a vein of clarity passed through her mind. It was not merely defiance that snapped his temper last night – it was jealousy over Maddy. She looked at him, startled that not only did he resent her care for Maddy but he let Maddy die because of it. She did not know whether to be touched by this or further enraged. As this dawned on her, her mouth parted and she did not move as Loki, perhaps taking this as acceptance, looked between her eyes and drew toward her, to kiss her – but he did not get far.

In a million little clatters, the silver vibrated on the table; as did the plates, and the goblets.

Still looking at her face, Loki jerked back from her – his eyes wild.

He shot up and, lacking his usual grace, he banged the table as he did so.

A silver knife wobbled and Sara steadied it with her fingers, shutting her eyes, in defeat, as Loki tore away from her in a rage. Once again.

The sound of the Bifrost reached her ears as it shot to life and roared across the sea.

It opened. Against Loki’s commands.

Sara straightened up in the chair and watched him march headlong toward the balcony, flinging his hand out before Gungnir, Odin’s staff, soared into his grip.

At the lip of the balcony, Loki stared out toward the sea. She had asked him to open the Bifrost for her and he lost his mind. She could not begin to imagine the danger that awaited whoever had done this. Resigned, Sara stayed seated and played with the knife on the table, her eyes closed for a quiet place she could go when he chose to take this out on whoever was nearest him.

Loki flipped around and stormed back into the hall, his face dark with anger.

Through the twisted shapes of the iron divider, she watched him march toward the doors, his eyes burning at them as though he would melt them with his gaze.

“You may take your leave now, Sara.” He spat. “I’ll leave you to your grief.”

Left alone by his exit, she exhaled a deep sigh of relief. Absently, she ran her fingers up the blunt side of the knife, twirled it and then laid it upon the table. It was clean, spotless, the work of someone’s early rising hands. Weren’t they her own once? She held it up. The silver glinted.

She straightened the knife against the plate and listened to Loki’s footsteps as they retreated along the corridor. She could hear danger in them as the sound dwindled with his exit. Though she’d never set eyes on the All-Seer, Heimdaal, she couldn’t help but pity what was coming toward him just then.

Once she could no longer hear him, Sara left the table and peeked out into the corridor. It was empty, as the eastern wing of the palace usually was.

Quite alone, Sara meandered down the sweeping steps that spiraled along the tower, open to the skies with only pillars to separate the rambling citizen from falling leagues below to their death. She wondered at the grace of the Asgardians – for they never fell.

For a short time, she didn’t see a soul as she descended. Not until she reached a landing that linked the next flight of spiraling stairs with a long courtyard. It brimmed with high flowerbeds bursting with red and white roses. A long aisle of calm water ran along the wall and above golden foot bridges linked the towers and glinted in the violet, fiery dusk.

Two ladies passed by her, arm in arm. Sara smiled a by-your-leave as she moved out of their way to seat herself on the edge. As they descended the stairs, she caught one of them whisper to the other.

“That’s Loki’s mistress.” She cooed.

“Do you not mean the king’s mistress?” The other teased. Their giggles faded as the two ladies descended down the stairs, out of her view. Sara sighed.

Was she like him? Was she alone? If she were alone on Asgard, her master had now certainly made it that way. With Marckus and Maddy gone, she had only the Ladies maids as company while Loki was off on his kingly duties. She lowered her head, wishing that whoever opened the Bifrost had done so yesterday. Maddy may still be alive, making noise in the kitchens once again.

Her trailing thoughts jerked to a pause when a blue light caught her eye. Below her, sat an abandoned, little courtyard – the ground a carpet of un-swept leaves, the fountain dry as bone. A blue glow faded in the dark mouth of a narrow, stone archway between the ivy-covered walls.

The veins of ivy uncurled and, to her surprise, Loki stepped out of it, his hands falling beside him at the last-stroke of some vanishing spell. She expected him to be at the Bifrost, or at least heading toward it. She waited for him to look up and see her but he stalked across the empty court – his expression fixed and narrow.

Once he was out of view, she looked in the direction of his exit confused by his presence there. Then, the wall of ivy knotted itself up the opening from which he’d just emerged. It crawled across the gap, weaving itself together. In a matter of seconds, the little stone archway was just like all the other stone archways in the wide citadel – but overgrown with flora, undeserving of even a second glance.

Sara stared at this, in wonder at the magic – if it was Loki’s doing or had it always been there? Some moments passed. Then she heard an outcry from beyond the quad – a commotion of cheers, followed by a strange sound she’d never heard before.

A thud landed upon a stone courtyard somewhere nearby. Then metal grinding against metal, followed by another thud. The bass of it echoed along the passages that led onto the court below. Confused, she leaned over to get a glimpse of the origin of the sound. She caught a glimpse of people running, and it was followed by another hard thud of metal.

Overhead two armory boys raced across a footbridge. One of them playfully punched the other boy’s arm.

“Come! You must see it!” he yelled at the younger boy trailing behind him. “The Destroyer is on the grounds! I saw it, brother! It is going to Jotunheim to kill all the Frost Giants! Come!”

“It cannot destroy all of them, you fool!” The other boy replied, shoving past the older one as they tore across at out of her view. “There is still one Frost Giant that Odin cannot kill!”

“Traitor!” The older boy laughed as they disappeared from Sara’s view.

For a beat, Sara stared after them. She could hear its steps, but could not see it.

Dangerous thoughts brewed in her mind, freezing her still.

The water sprouted circles as the bass of the Destroyer’s feet met the ground nearby. In the reflection of the water lay the Sawreven – a realm that dwelled in the reflection of the worlds. She had one friend left. She was about to look into it, call out for Marckus, when a perilous idea kindled. Her heart pounded as it coursed through her mind – a hope, a fool’s hope but Marckus was always a fool.

In the Sawreven, Marckus wasted away. His totem rested in the Vault, alongside her mother’s music box. She did not know where her courage rested, or if she had any – but she knew what did not rest in the Vault any longer: The Destroyer.

Or the guards – for Loki had dismissed them, she remembered suddenly. She had not meant to eavesdrop that night, but she remembered the look on Erlingr and Borgnyr’s faces as he gave the order to remove the sentinels from the Vault.

It was unguarded.

The realization turned wild in her mind as she looked from the water to the passageway. If Loki just deployed the Destroyer, the little archway may be an entrance to its lair.

Her legs moved of their own accord. The stairs met her feet as she dashed down them, her mind moving too fast.

She hurried across the courtyard.

The green veins were thick and still-growing, multiplying and interlocking around each other, unfinished with their task to seal the archway completely from view.

She peeked through the ivy. A rectangular ice-blue outline still fizzled away at the end of the narrow alley. It’s light also faded as the traces of energy that kept it open dwindled.

She looked around her and clutched the ivy. It was sticky and writhing with life as she tore it aside and pushed herself through it.

As she hurried up the narrow passage, the ivy curtained up behind her. She bit her lip, worried it would seal up entirely by the time her task was done – if she could find the courage to do it.

The outline of a door fizzled with light. She approached it, transfixed by where it exited – if it indeed led to the Vault…or somewhere worse. Her master may be able to traverse these doors so easily but she was mortal. Could it work for her?

She meant only to touch the wall then gather her courage to step through it, but as soon as the solid stone met her fingers, a blast of cold air shot around her and sucked her right through.

Before she had a chance to change her mind, she stood blinking in a dark chamber.

**

As her eyes adjusted in the dark, she knew she stood in Odin’s Vault and no other place. For the air alone carried the hallowed silence of secrets. Flames lined the flight of stairs on which she stood and nowhere else in Asgard could they burn so still.

It looked to be clear of guards, but Sara lingered on the stairs, expecting an alarm, the shot of an arrow, a sentry to rise from shadows.

But no one came.

She hitched up her skirt and quickly made her way down the stairs. Her eyes scanned around the strange chamber. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen. The Vault was smallaer than she imagined. It did not match the bombast and mightiness of Asgard above– there was not a trace of gold or stone in sight; no towering pillars and regality of space. Rather the walls leaned in toward each other and the light was odd, metallic and blue-lit. Above her, instead of vaulted peaks, it was a low roof with a black grid that stretched across it, cutting up squares of harsh white light – an eerie light that she’d never on the grounds above.

Podiums sat inside deep grooves along the walls. They boasted strange objects. A violet orb buzzed upon on one podium, humming with the song of galaxies, of power far beyond. She shivered at the sight of it. A giant amber eye followed her as she passed.

An inlet of water ran along one side of the aisle, ice along the other. A frozen hand stuck out from it still grasping the air. What it had reached for, she dared not imagine.

Swiftly, she scanned for a trace of a box or a wax doll as she made her way up the corridor. She stopped before a podium that stood at the head of the aisle – in a place of majesty as though it alone observed all the other relics with a kingly eye. But it was empty. She thought it probably carried some invisible horror that she dared not play with and she took her eyes away from it immediately.

She stood at the head of the Vault, exasperated, as she gave one last look around. She could not see Marckus’ totem anywhere. Or the music box. Indeed, it would’ve looked absurd amongst such otherworldly marvels.

She was about to walk back up the aisle when she spotted a tiny, glowing circle tucked far into a corner where the bright grid wall joined the wall perpendicular to it.

She turned right at the podium and stood before it, wondering what it did. It was a strange knob if it was indeed one. The little circle burned red – begging her to push it.

She did. Silently, but in eye-blink speed, a door slid open.

She peeked in.

It was an antechamber, darkly lit with only one urn burning high in the corner.

Unlike the Vault, there were no podiums – as though the objects here were not worth marveling at. But the lean, onyx shelves that ran along the tilted walls had been carved with prestigious care. Upon them lay treasures and artifacts. Half of which, she was sure, had been confiscated. A bag of gold; a hand-axe glowing emerald that seemed to seethe at Sara as she passed; a helix of galaxies spinning in an hour glass; a blue-jay frozen in a block of ice though inside of it, a mirage of snow-withered trees danced in invisible winds; a book glittered on a small oak lectern humming with songs and black markings that shifted under her view.

Her mother’s music-box – a simple trinket of blue stone – would stand out amidst such strange artifacts. She rummaged her eyes across the shelves and could not find it.

Finally, her eyes finally landed on a wax figurine. It rested next to a tiny, crystal globe that swirled with lightning. Sara tenuously plucked Marckus’ wax doll from the shelf, expecting an alarm to ring out. But she heard only the popping of the urn as it crackled in the dark.

As she touched the totem, she remembered him handing it to her, entrusting her with the safe-keeping of his soul.

She’d risked enough coming this far so she’d take no chances and she would burn it down quick. Rushing to the urn, she dropped it into the fire. At first the wax resisted the flames, remaining solid. She cursed herself for being too late.

Then slowly a blur of rainbow light streaked across the waxy limbs and they softened and began to melt.

Sara waited for something climactic, some kind of explosion to know that the talisman worked for him. But the blob of wax merely melted into the base of the flames, eaten up whole.

“Godspeed, Marckus.” She whispered hopefully.

She picked up her skirt and hurried back to the door, amazed at her luck – just moments before she had been tearing at the ivy and now her task was done. It was all over so quickly. She hoped she could find her way back just as swiftly and as easy.

She pushed the red circle in the wall and the door hushed open.

Just ahead, the podium was no longer empty. On it stood a small casket, glowing with an intense blue light.

She was sure it was not there before.

She peeked out the door and saw the Vault abandoned still. The aisle was empty, save for the sound of trickling waters and the strange humming from the walls.

Relieved, Sara went to take a step when a hand slid across her mouth, pulling her back with gentle force.

“You like mischief…” Loki said in her ear. “Come. I’ll show you what it really looks like.”

He tugged her out of the antechamber and up the aisle.

“Loki –” she went to say but before even a syllable left her lips, he snapped back to her and slammed his hand upon her mouth. His eyes firing in mischief, he circled them from one side of the Vault to the other.

“There are other ears in here besides our own.” He said. “Careful they do not hear your voice.”

She nodded and agreed to be silent, a rush of relief pouring over her as she realized Loki was not interested in her presence there, nor even angry at it, for he was in the throes of something else. Excitement rallied across his features as he pulled her up the stairs, paused at the giant doors and hovered his hand across the knob. He watched an ivy-wrought symbol etch itself across the metal, glowing ice-white. With a grin, he looked at her and tapped it.

Weightlessness and a flash of air circled around her and immediately her feet met the hard surface of stairs as Loki led her up a spiraling tower, howling with high winds.

“Your period of mourning is over.” Loki said over his shoulder as he pulled her out onto a balcony. They were partially encircled with gold walls that opened on one side to a wide view of the coast where it met the edge of the city.

Below stretched the rainbow bridge, its massive gatehouse and the waves that pounded against rocky bluffs.

Sara gulped at the sight of the Destroyer as it made long, slow strides past the awe-struck citizens, some of whom even bowed as it towered by.

The high doors of the gatehouse heaved opened as it neared.

At this height, it looked almost small, the people even smaller; but the pound of the Destroyer’s steps upon the bridge could be heard over the rush of winds that tore across the two of them and howled across the torches on the walls.

Loki stood behind her, placed his hands on her arms and smiled.

He did not reprimand her for entering the Vault. She now knew why: he was in some dangerous game all his own.

She wondered why he was starting a war with the Frost Giants right at this moment? The very one his brother started. Marckus had told her of the omens that Jotuns would once again breach Asgard. Loki said omens were foolish – but she worried.

“You are sending it to Jotunheim, my lord?” she asked, looking up at him.

Though his eyes darkened, a good-natured smirk spread across his face as he glanced down at her, proudly, then back down to the Destroyer.

“Oh, I will take care of Jotunheim.” Loki said. “That is for Thor and his pitiful friends.”

Sara furrowed her brows – not understanding. She’d heard tales of the Destroyer – many tales, but they all agreed on one point – that this weapon, forged by Odin, shot rivers of fire and was designed for one purpose and one purpose alone: to destroy a Frost Giant in its steps.

“How will the Destroyer stop him from returning, your maj –” But Loki cut off her question with a look of pride, a dangerous electricity in his eyes. She leaned back from him, comprehending.

“You don’t mean to – ” she asked.

To her amazement, Loki had not a hint of malice as he laughed, almost good-naturedly at the dawn of a good joke, his eyes dancing wild with delight.

“But he is your brother.” Sara whispered, aghast. “Loki, you do not mean – ”

The delight was short-lived. It fled from his face as he cut her off.

“ – He will not take this from me.” His jaw clenched so tight that the muscles flared and a vein pulsed in his neck.

“ ‘This’ what, my king?” Sara said, exasperated by a train of thought she could not ever keep pace with. She ran her hands up the sides of his face. At her touch, his eyes flinched but did not soften. He wasn’t listening but he – unlike last night – did not look insane, so she pressed on. “What is ‘this’ you speak of? What is ‘this’ he will not take? Could I not restore it for you, whatever it was, my king? For surely, you do not mean to kill your…your brother.”

“He is not my brother.”

His veneer was calm but rage simmered underneath it; it boiled in his eyes though she could not detect it in his voice as Loki slid his gaze from the direction of the Destroyer and down to her.

“And why do you care for his fate?” His voice was level, but his tone dangerous.

“I do not care for your brother.” She said, quickly. Fast enough to save her head.

His arms crossed, his gaze slid back to toward the bridge.

“Loki, it is your life I care for.” She continued. Her voice was too light to hold any command over him but the horror of what he was doing made her hurry on. “It is your soul I care for - do you want his blood on it? On your hands?” She searched his eyes frantically but it was like she was speaking to him from some other room. She may as well have been a world away. He wasn’t listening. “Think of your mother.”

Loki didn’t look at her.

She touched his shoulder. “Would you have her bury a son?”

This didn’t reach him, either. Instead, he looked to be calculating outcomes even more fiercely. And reveling in them.

She tilted her head up to him, blocking his view, forcing him to see her.

“What of the people? The people of Midgard? You will set them afire, Loki?” she said, trying to plead into his eyes, urging him to hear his own actions. She’d sound them out for him since he clearly could not see. With all conviction she knew her master did not know what he was doing. He was making it up as he went along. “They are all someone’s children, somewhere.”

He turned away from her. The edge of his cape glided above the gold floor.

“If they stand before him, they will burn.” He said. “The Destroyer has its commands.”

“But they are innocent.” She pleaded toward his back, disbelieving.

He stopped and turned to her.

“You worry for their fate, as well?” His brows flinched together as his tone turned upward – theatrical and mocking. “Why would that be?”

Loki took careful steps toward her, his expression rising into a question.

“They are not like you.” He said. He tilted up his chin as though puzzled by her. But she sensed a dangerous pretense in his voice. “You call them ‘innocent’. They are savage, ugly, hungry for power like any beast.”

Loki now stood close and the scent of him filled her senses, his voice suddenly rich as it rained over her.

“Unless you are writhing upon my fingers, when have you ever been savage?” Loki grabbed her wrist and pulled her tight up against him. Her body went rigid as he hissed hard through his teeth. “Unless you touch yourself at the thought of me, when have you ever been hungry? But power…” Loki paused and took her chin between his fingers. “Ah, you are much like them in that respect. You crave my powers inside you…”

He ran a thumb across her lips.

“…inside your wet torment of a mouth…”

His other hand slid down the front of her dress.

“…In between your legs that you spread like a whore for me whenever I wish.”

Sara kept her eyes on his, burning at his insult.

“You crave it there.” Loki continued. “Now, you may watch it rip apart your land,

your kind, your people.”

Her mouth parted and so did Loki’s as he read her surprised expression. His brows glanced upward, in a wink.

“Oh, you thought I didn’t know?” He crinkled his brows together. “How little faith you have in my perception.” His eyes grazed down her features. “Your heritage is on your face. It is in your eyes.” He hissed the latter word at her. “I knew it the moment you told me your name.”

Aflame, he looked at her with a strange expectancy as though he waited for her to defy his answer. Sensing where his thoughts led, she continued.

“I kept no secret from you, my king. I did not know.” She said.

The gatehouse doors clanged open and the Destroyer emerged from out the other side and stomped across the bridge over the sea. Loki’s gaze slid out to it briefly before sliding back to her.

“Loki, I was but born there. My heart is here.” She said. A silence settled between them.

Low and quick, Loki asked. “Is it?”

Then he vanished.

She whipped around and looked over the ledge. The gatehouse opened it’s mighty jaws for Loki as he tore through on horseback and shot out the other end, trailing behind the Destroyer as it neared the Bifrost at the edge of the sea.

Loki once told her the immense focus it took to Vanish and Emerge, the clarity of thought, of calm precision it took to emerge oneself a long distance away. He did not vanish straight to the Bifrost but rather a short distance below to mount his steed. Seeing this, Sara knew for certain he was in no state of focus – or calm – he was in a dangerous state and it wasn’t her alone that would suffer but many others.

For a split second she thought of running to the Queen to warn her of what Loki intended to do. Frigga could surely stop him from himself – but could Sara even gain access to her? She was but a citizen.

But it was too late.

The Bifrost ignited into life, sending the Destroyer to Midgard.

Sara watched the white column of light pulse and surge into the galaxy. She swallowed hard in dread for what awaited the frail people in its path; and for Loki – if he succeeded. He’d be banished from Asgard, as well.

When Loki reappeared again, he just snatched her.

She had only a glimpse of flames shining on the horns of his helmet when a puff of air flew across her and she opened her eyes in the mighty expanse of Odin’s palace.

Loki’s hand tightened on hers as he charged toward the throne, his horns lowered at it as though he meant to ram it and knock it over from its perch.

She had to run to keep up with him as he dragged her toward the dais, ignoring the two guards who stood still and quiet before the throne.

The sight of the golden seat made her sick.

“You think I cannot see you when you crawl into forbidden places.” Loki spat as he spun Sara around in a fury.

He yanked her upon his lap and pulled her tight against him.

“Rifling through my father’s treasures for your pathetic, Midgardian friend.” He seethed on the word.

Loki placed one hand upon her neck and tenderly pulled her back with it. He whispered in her ear. “You doubt my power of perception…” His breath came wild and rapid in her ears as he slid two fingers up the side of her face. “I can see all from here. I can detect all within. Since you doubt my powers of sight, my love, I will show you.”

Bracing her tight to him, he pulsed his fingers upon her temples.

The throne room disappeared from around her and a wide expanse of desert – tan and sun-scorched – exploded into her vision.

She could hear Loki’s voice in her head as he said “You will see what I see.”

Her view tilted down and she found herself looking at a group of men in black garments, standing amidst strange, dark carriages that glinted in bright sunlight – brighter than any sun she’d seen before. They looked upward toward her, expectant.

As a reflex, Sara gripped onto Loki as the sight overwhelmed her – she did not know where she was or what she was looking at. Loki replied by taking in her embrace as though she were a lover to share in his delight.

She recognized the suits.

They were like the suit Loki wore the day before.

Terrified, she dragged her gaze down realizing she was watching from across the realms and from the eyes of the Destroyer on Midgard.

“Please, Loki – do not do this.”

“Shhh—sh,” Loki whispered into her neck, laughing. “Watch. Now this impresses me.”

Her view blazed in a firestorm of orange, the noise deafening, as a gigantic stream of fire shot across the little black carriages, incinerating them and their occupants.

Screaming, Sara leapt from his grip. Loki chuckled.

“Why do you show me this?” She said.

But Loki stared before him, entranced by the mayhem. He was in the throes of it and he sank farther back into the throne, enraptured.

“Look at how fast they run.” He said, grinning. “Such agility.” His eyes glanced up at her before shooting ahead again. “You’re not impressed? Pity.”

Impressed? “My mother died like this!” she pleaded, horrified.

Loki leaned forward on the throne and his eyes focused straight onto her. They flashed.

“Oh, and what a noble death it was.” He sneered. As though this were not enough, he added with a shrug. “I’d say she was a spared a miserable life. As are they.”

It was too far.

Rage filled her mouth and before she could stop herself, she spit at him.

She looked at him, chest heaving, astonished at what she’d just done.

Loki looked down – then he grinned. With a trilling laugh, he purred.

“Now, that’s the spirit, my creature.”

His cheeks reddened and the green of his eyes stirred in pleasure as he sank back into the throne looking up at her. He looked nearly aroused by what she’d done.

His teeth flashed as he smiled up at her. “So common of your kind.”

“I will not watch you do this.” Sara said. Just then Loki’s eyes shot ahead in rapt focus and unleashed her from his attention. She felt each ounce of it draw away from her and fix itself upon the vision before him.

Upon the throne, he sat in a trance – unaware of her and everything else.

Finally, she turned away.

He was too distracted to stop her this time.

For the moment, that relieved her.

But she felt her heart break with each step away from him, the throne, the dais, across the long sea of floor swirling with gold like snakes in a sky of black.

She wished to be far from here. Here, where her master’s eyes looked straight forward, right in her direction, but did not see her. Or anyone. He was far beyond.

Sara walked across the league of palace and stared up at the mighty columns, holding up the pinnacles of heights over their heads, over Loki, the guards, over all of them. They may as well be yanked down so they could crash around her. She felt a tiny speck in this world, even tinier in his eyes. He had been harsh, but never cruel. Not like last night. Not like this.

She fought in tears as she drew farther away from him.

It was an eternity to walk away – a silent one, broken only by the occasional trickle of Loki’s laugh behind her on the throne.

She was half way across the palace when she heard his staff tap the floor as he stood up.

She was even further still when a streak of lightning flashed across the eastern sky. Moments later, Loki cursed. He cursed so loud that his voice ricocheted off the

columns and rang out clear and loud, startling the crows from their perches outside.

He then yelled at the guards. “Leave! Leave, now!”

Then, he shouted. “You! Return at once!”

Sara turned around.

A league stood between her and Loki. It may as well have been an abyss between them. At this distance, he was but a darkling figure, bordered by flames, his gold horns high upon his head. She could not read his features from this far and the tears veiling across her eyes blurred him further.

“Come back. Now!” Loki roared.

She didn’t budge.

Loki leveled his staff toward her. The silver point of Gungnir gleamed across the distance and she could see his aim was true – it pointed right at her gut.

Though her voice trembled, she spoke out clear.

“Use it, my king.” She said.

Her voice echoed clear across the palace. In a beat, Loki launched into the air.

In a soaring arc, he flew across the expanse, landed in front of her and grabbed her by the neck.

Through clenched teeth, he snarled into her face.

“Do not think, for a moment, I would not, my love.”

Kicking or clawing from his grasp would not help – he was far too strong.

She choked for air and kept her eyes to the ground and would not give him her gaze again. She could not look at him like this – it broke her heart. He was sick, wild and nowhere near the lord she loved.

The grip upon her throat was tremendous. Darkness edged into the sides of her vision as no more air reached her lungs. In that very moment, Loki released his grip, seized her arm and in a blast of cold air, she vanished in a blink and emerged to the left of the throne.

Loki spun her around and slammed the staff across her chest, pinning her against a gilded column that shot up from the dais.

She kept her eyes away from his as little blisters of fire and prickles of ice tingled against her skin where Gungnir touched. Through the fabric of her bodice, she felt the staff burning hot and cold, all at once, as though Gungnir itself could not make up its mind of what or who controlled it.

“I brought you back from the Shadow…” Loki’s breath hailed cold upon her cheek as he snarled “…and I can send you back if I wish.”

Her head sank. It broke her heart, then. The mere mention of his deed in the Shadow realm ripped it wide open. She shut her eyes and could not bear to think of him and this terror before her as one and the same.

“You did not bring me back, my king.” Sara said, struggling with all her might to keep her voice level. Then, she burned her eyes upward into Loki’s. “The one who brought me back is nowhere to be found here. You are not him.”

Loki looked confused, as though she’d just spoke to him in another language. His eyes wavered between hers, uncertain. Somewhere in there she hoped to see the Loki who held her upon the dais, and carried her from Hel; the Loki who held her close in the early dawn and promised to never harm her; the Loki who took aside the boys who were bullied by the stronger lads and cheered them with magic tricks upon his palm when no one was looking.

This before her was just nerves and impulse, and cruelty – some ghost of him.

“Tell me you don’t love me.” Loki threatened, his eyes dark upon hers.

She could not tell him she loved him. This was not him.

But she could never say that she didn’t – for the eyes that trained on her face were still his and Loki was in there somewhere.

It was never in her nature to lie and, even still, she could not and would not.

Impatient, Loki smashed the staff tighter against her, as though to jar it out of her, to force the words from her ribs. He looked at her mouth intensely, as though he waited for the words he demanded to come galloping from them.

She watched his eyes vacillate. They flicked from blue to green, back to blue, back to green and she looked up at him, waiting for Loki to return, to come back to her, to see her. She could see he was in deep, farther than she ever imagined he’d go.

The staff stayed tight against her.

Resigned, Sara took her eyes away from his and fought back tears as she pressed her fingers upon his staff and gently pushed it down.

“Let me go, Loki.” Her voice came quiet. Her own words hurt her. She could not believe she was saying them. But this shadow of him was too much to bear. She could not look at him as she said “I will torment you no longer.”

Loki released his staff and watched in amazement as Sara walked right past him and toward the stairs that crept down from the throne.

For a couple of seconds, he looked at the air before him, his mouth parted in disbelief.

Then he took three long strides to her, grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him.

“You mean to forsake me???!!” His eyes shined wild with water.

He grabbed her arm so tight that it went numb under his fingers. Tears tore up her throat, scorching her face as she recoiled, refusing to look at him as he shook her. He looked downright wild.

“No, Loki.” She said quietly and calm though she felt the tempest of him unhinge around her at each of her words. “I do not forsake you. But you are gone. I once thought you worthy. I see you are not.”

She nearly choked on the last of her words when she saw how they hit him. The color drained from his face. The flush of cheeks left as he went pale. He looked at her like she was a ghost.

“Let me go, my king.” She said, the tears killing her voice and extinguishing it.

For a moment she thought he was conjuring magic for the strange light that brimmed in his eyes at her words. Grimacing, he jerked his head toward her.

“Have I not done everything for you? I have given you all…” Loki yanked her backward and she knew what was coming as he threw her upon the throne, and pinned her beneath him. He released his staff. It stood upright of it’s own accord.

“- All of me.” he repeated, spitting. “You will return the favor and give everything.”

She couldn’t breathe under his grip on her neck. His knee dug hard into her side. The hard gold of the king’s seat crushed against her spine as she struggled against him. She could not tell if he was trying to take her by force or end her life. Looking up at him, she saw that he was not certain either.

Sara shoved against his chest but it was hitting stone.

She wanted to tear his heart out but could only yell, “No!”

Loki exhaled and grinned. “Oh, yes.”

“I’ll leave!” Sara said. She tried to reason. He’d have no one left to terrorize. “I’ll leave the realm! I’ll run away!”

Loki laughed and bore his eyes into hers, his mouth wide in a grin as his teeth bared above her mouth. Saliva lined his lips. “Oh, I’d find you.”

Within his helmet, his face was empty and clinical as he jerked Sara’s leg high and backward; his eyes unresponsive as she cried out in pain.

“Oh, my love.” Loki said, his expression grave as he tightened his chokehold upon her neck. “This will hurt. This…” his lips curled up his teeth as he grimaced. “…will break you.”

She shut her eyes tight – she could not endure this again but he was too strong.

In the struggle, her leg – bare and exposed – was arched into the air. Over his shoulder, she spotted the gold brace upon her ankle. The light of the flames glinted off of it.

Darkness closed in around her eyes as Loki’s grip tightened. She quickly drew her knees backward – he seemed to take this as acceptance – and brought her ankle closer to her reach. She pulled a blade from the gold-woven sheath. She gripped it with all of her might and brought it down hard upon him.

With the ease of slicing through water, almost as if it wanted to burrow itself, the dark blade slipped right through his cape and the hard leather of his suit and lodged deep into his lower back.

Loki let out a scream of pain as he staggered off her and backward down the steps. It was a cry she’d never heard come from him or any beast in the wild.

Violently, Loki doubled over and his horned helmet vanished into thin air. Veins bulged across the surface of his skin as it turned dark blue, etched with lines of black. Screaming still, his eyes burned red as blood.

Sara froze upon the throne – shocked at the power of the blade, at what she’d done. The energy of the blade still tingled upon her fingers.

Gasping in pain, Loki shot his hands to his back and rushed to pull the object from out of him. As he wrenched it out, his skin lightened back to its paleness; his eyes back to soft blue as he lifted the blood-soaked sliver up to his eyes, blinking at it in astonishment.

His hands trembling, Loki looked at the blade with a hurt expression - as though the object itself broke his heart. Then, he looked at her, stunned.

“A blade of obsidian….” Loki said, his chest heaving still as he gasped for breath. “This…is for…monsters.”

“Loki, I – ”

Panting, Loki stood up to his full height and approached her, but he was trembling all over.

“You…threaten…to break me?”

Sara leapt off the throne and backed away from him, the steps unsteady beneath her feet. Slowly, Loki rotated, watching her as she crossed by. His stance was battle-ready, as though she were a foe of equal measure to him and ready to pounce.

Loki lifted the blade, clenched it into his fist and squeezed. The blade crumbled in a cloud of black dust as it poured from his hand.

“This is but a small poison to me you…agh!”

Loki grabbed his back and fell again but this time he caught himself with one arm on the edge of the throne, refusing to let himself fall prostrate. His dark hair fell across his forehead as he struggled to lift his head, but the poison pulsed in his veins and he dropped to one knee, his mouth hovering over the seat of the throne as he panted for air.

Then he grimaced in pain and in a flash – so quick Sara thought she might have hallucinated it – a hideous sight crawled over his visage. His complexion looked poisoned and sickly, whiter than white; gray shadows grew under his eyes; his face turned veined, his lips white and cracked.

In a reflex, Sara rushed to him but Loki shot his hand up, signaling for her to not come near. Then he shut his eyes tight and, with trembling hands, gripped Odin’s seat.

Panic seized her at the thought of him dying. She had not meant that, she had not been thinking for anything but her life.

Struggling for breath, Loki’s lips moved rapidly as he murmured to himself, his eyes closed.

Suddenly, the palace went dark as the flames in all the torches went out in a gust of wind. A gold field shimmered around Loki’s body. In a roar, the waters from behind the throne sucked into the air and evaporated in clouds of blue light as he drew their force into his body. Two ravens, lingering in the shadows of the hall, took off in a hurry, determined not to lose their life, as Loki drained it from all the elements around him.

Then, flames shot back into their torches and the palace ignited with light.

Frozen upon the steps, Sara watched as Loki opened his eyes, blinking in amazement as he steadied himself upon the throne.

His skin was back to normal. His body went stiff and strong, losing all tremble.

A satisfied laugh trilled from his lips as he rose to his feet without a hint of strain. He looked the peak of health and beyond.

Standing upright, Loki turned to her and grinned.

“Oh, my creature.” He said. “You had better run.”

He stepped down the stairs and each step met with hers backward. Though he looked at the height of vitality, his eyes were not his own – there was no desire in them, no mischief, no pain. They looked upon her, frozen wide open and dead as statues.

Suddenly, Loki looked just above her head – as though he saw someone behind her. Then, he darted his head in the direction of the sea as though he’d just remembered a vital task. In a pop, vanished before her face.

She was left standing alone in the Throne Room. A moment later, the Bifrost shot off into the distance.

Sara ran.

**

The winds kicked up, suddenly. They turned icy against her skin and bit like razor teeth.

Her feet took her fast, but she didn’t know where she was running.

As she raced across the bridges, her mind burned wild for refuge for somewhere, or anyone to turn to and clear herself from Loki’s sights.

Gedr first came to mind and when she found the bathhouse abandoned, she did not so much as pause but rather, sped onward to find Liason Swift. No one could protect her at the moment – but he may be able to mediate, or perhaps find her a way off of Asgard.

When she reached the servant cottages, she found it a bustle with activity. Confused at the commotion, Sara darted across the square, looking for Swift. Maids and cooks dashed about her, collecting their few but treasured belongings from their huts and hurrying out the common archway that led toward the sea.

There’d been no official alarm. No herald blew to warn of danger, but whisperings

of Frost Giants in Asgard took like wild fire between the servants. It must’ve traveled faster than her feet for by the time it reached the tower maids of the Odinson grounds, these whispers had escalated to tales of full-fledged massacre erupting in the city squares, in the sacred halls of Odin.

In an ambush, they would be the last to be defended so the servant class long ago had appointed their own shelter – a small cove, tucked low along the rocky coast. Far away from the citadel, a cleft in the rocky bluffs provided cover as it reached far back under the earth. It brimmed with watery caves. The servants named this place “Heavendoor” for the caves were full of music and sounded to their ears like whistling from another world, the next world.

Racing from the grounds, Sara tore down the grassy trail as it opened onto the cliffside. She spotted Swift among the boulders that led down to the cove.

With the face of a man quite ready to retire from his job, Swift counted heads as the horde filed quickly past him.

When he spotted Sara, exasperation left his face.

“M’lady! What news from the palace?” He said as she hurried to him. She meant to come to him for counsel, but he was in a flurry with a whole other matter. “Is it true that Frost Giants have breached Odin’s hall? That Jotuns have managed to somehow, what, kill all the guards and all the heralds so that they are too dead to warn us we are under attack?”

This was the closest she’d ever seen Swift look angry. He directed the laggers with a stern hand, pointing them down the path.

She heard the thundering of horse-hooves as the tavern-keeps tore down the High Pass in the north toward the sea, lanterns swinging in their hands. It seemed to her that everyone was under attack.

“Wha – no,” Sara said, confused at the commotion and the rumor. “I just left there. The palace is quiet.”

Save for her master, wrenched over in Jotun form, she’d seen no trace of Frost Giants in the citadel. Though she’d just fled so fast from it, she could not know for sure.

“Why do you run then?” Swift looked at her, bewildered.

“I – ” Sara said. “The king…he means to kill me.”

As the last of the group hurried past them, Sara fell in alongside Swift.

“His ‘majesty means to kill’ you.” Swift repeated, struggling to find his footing down through the rocks. “M’lady, welcome to my life.”

The slope down to the shore was steep and cluttered with boulders rust-dark and wet from sea-spray. Squealing and laughing, children scrambled up and down them, in sheer joy to be outside, oblivious to any urgency.

Against the winds, Swift hitched his cape around his shoulders and squinted out at the thrashing sea.

Sara sidled down the slope, pressing against the sea-slick boulders.

“He is much out of himself.” She said. It was a poor explanation.

“Not again.” Swift exchanged a knowing glance with her. Then, as they drew deeper down to the cove, he raised his voice to be heard over the sound of the waves. “I suppose the Jotuns did not take kindly to us sending the Destroyer into their midst.”

“I suppose not.” Sara said, biting her tongue to say no more than that. She meant to hide from Loki, not incriminate him. “But the palace is quiet, I assure you. I was just there and saw no sign of Frost Giants, much less a battle.”

“Quiet? No sign?” Said a water-maid, looking over her shoulder at the both of them. Her long white hair was matted with mud and pebbles. “I saw the river bank turn to ice wi’ my own eyes!”

A boat-servant, his teeth half gone, waddled next to the lady, carrying a bronze basket full of fish.

“Three of us saw Jotuns on that very bridge!” He nodded out toward the sea. “From my boat, I saw them. With a god’s eye you could squint and see them there now. We are no fools. Odin is dead and the Jotuns have come to kill us all. I wait for no decree.” He flicked his head back in the direction of the citadel. “They don’t care for the likes of us.”

A man clutched a cage full of chickens under one arm while trying to keep his small

daughter near him with the other.

“We must stay and fight, father!” She squealed up at him. “Then we can be real Asgardians!”

She tore away from him and charged down the rocks, yelling, “For Asgard!”

“I saw nothing out of the ordinary, m’lord.” Sara said, watching the girl stand on a rock and wave a piece of driftwood to the sky, rattling it like a saber.

“Well, then, this is nonsense of the highest order.” Swift tutted.

Seagulls circled over their heads, cawing high and nasally over the pounding surf. The night brimmed with clouds of stars. Fire-orange nebulas burned in both the eastern and western skies – to Sara they looked like double sunsets on either side of the world.

The rainbow bridge shone in a straight line across the dark sea. It ended in the gray eye of the Bifrost, barely visible at night but for the luminescence of the bridge that refracted off of it’s surface and lit up the sea beneath. Gold pylons stood vigil every half mile along its breadth, their foundations exploding in white clouds as waves thrashed against them below the bridge. The dazzling light refracted off the pylons and doubled its brightness against the black, starred sky. The spectacle was so beautiful that a few of the servants stopped to gape as they made their way down the rocky slope.

Most of them had never seen the bridge from this prospect – by the sea and this close. Sara helped the more elderly maids down from the rocks and onto the shore – feeling that wherever they chose to hide would be just as good for her – for now. It was better here than the palace – or wherever Loki stalked. Alongside all of them, she could perhaps wait out his rages.

“Well, I’ll be! That’s a sight.” The elder woman exclaimed, staring at the bridge.

Holding her hand, Sara looked out at it and though it’s beauty was stark against the night it struck her with a sense of dread, of danger, though she did not know why.

“Well, just as well.” Swift continued on, ignoring the spectacle behind him. He drew himself up proudly and sniffed. “Whether it be rumor or not, I will not risk having one more servant die under my watch again. Not only did his majesty appoint me but Odin himself awarded me and I have the respect of my charges. It is my solemn duty to look aft –”

“’Oy, Swift!” a man called out, carrying a barrel of mead. “You ass! I will piss in your cot if you roused me from my sleep for nothing!”

Swift shut his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose. Then, he exhaled.

The small group had just entered the caves when a geyser of light shot into the horizon and the Bifrost burst to life. Though it hovered far out at sea, the roar of it tore across the water and the sound was deafening – it amplified through the curve of the cove and rippled deep into the caves.

On the shore, both Sara and Swift cupped their ears and watched as a blur of red shot across the bridge. It sped so fast that rings of smoky air lingered in its wake. The blur zoomed in the direction of the citadel.

It was so fast, Sara could not see what it was, but a voice cried out from behind her.

“It is Lord Thor! He has returned!”

Straight above her, on the high ground, the tavern-keeps had stayed put. Atop their horses, they lifted their mugs and smashed them together, cheering at the sight. Swift looked up at them and frowned.

“The impudence to bring drink to an exodus.” He said.

He then fumbled spectacles out of his cape and shoved them onto his face so he could get a better look at the Bifrost. Sara followed his gaze. A group of shadows hurried across the bridge – just black flecks in a sea of lights. They dragged a massive weight between them.

Excitement at Lord Thor’s return rattled its way through the huddled groups. Seconds later, whoops and cheers erupted from far back in the caves as Thor’s tower servants got the news.

They tore out of the rift in the cliffside, cheering and kicking up sand as they broke around Swift ignoring his demands for them to stay where they are, that the grounds were no longer safe.

But they didn’t listen as they fled up through the boulders, eager to return to their posts – to light Thor’s halls, to prepare his welcome feast.

Sara watched them tear up the slope and noticed that just the mere news of his return made them fearless, even in the face of Frost Giants, and that they felt no such confidence under Loki’s charge.

Swift looked to her, exasperated as to what to do now. Sara looked back to him and she felt, for a moment, they were the only two on the shore who were not elated at the sight of Thor’s return.

She bit her lip and looked out toward the sea. It was good news that Thor was alive. It meant her master chose to spare him. Perhaps he would spare her – there was hope yet.

But she worried at the speed of the red blur as it flew across the bridge. It was fast and ferocious. She feared the speed could only be for retribution – to fight and kill Loki. She knew Thor courted war. He picked a brawl with Frost Giants just for mere fun. He would surely give no thought to killing an enemy and Loki just made himself one.

“He can fight a whole army of Frost Giants on his own!” a boy squealed, peeking from around his mother’s waist. “Can’t he, mother?”

His mother, a tall woman with a wooden leg, hushed the boy and ordered him back into the caves, then cautiously stepped out. Around her, the band of servants trickled from the opening and surrounded the Liason; just the knowledge that the golden-haired prince was back in Asgard made them bolder, too.

They pelted Swift with questions. Should they return? Will Lord Thor fight the Frost Giants? Are they safe now?

But Sara had drawn away from the group.

Alone, she walked toward the edge of the water. The cold winds from the sea cut across her hair and face as she stared up at the bridge.

Loki, on horseback, charged across its expanse at ferocious speed.

He raced at the velocity of survival, as though his very life depended on getting to the Bifrost. She wondered what terror must be behind him to propel him so. How steep Thor’s wrath? To which realm did Loki plan to go and so quickly?

Then the silhouette of his horse reeled back, its forelegs kicking wildly into the air as it came to a sudden halt.

His horse still cantering, Loki turned and looked back. His horns side by side, she could see he was looking out beyond the bridge in her direction.

Across the dark sea, she looked up at the silhouette, black against the lights of the bridge.

For a moment, he stared out toward the shoreline.

For a moment, she stared back.

Then he slammed the reins and charged on.

Moments later, the Bifrost woke to life. It whirred and surged in a thrash of noise and light, overtaking the sound of waves as they lapped against the rocks at her feet.

Against the winds, Sara shut her eyes. She let herself hope that though Loki was fleeing Asgard, though the Bifrost would wrench him away and blast him to some other realm – wherever it would send him, perhaps he would come to his senses. He’d change back.

And he’d return again. He would come back. To her.

She waited for the familiar sound, that last pulse of energy as the Bifrost expelled itself into the galaxies…but the sound did not come. She opened her eyes.

Rather than thrusting a charge, the pillar of light just burned and melted into the black horizon. Webs of bright silver crawled across the surface of the globe, splitting like branches birthing branches.

Swift was soon beside her, his face grave.

“That…is not normal.” He said

Sara looked between Swift and the Bifrost, at a loss of what was going on – if Loki was safe inside of it. She’d heard the Bifrost discharge many times but she’d never heard such a sound as it was making now – like glaciers ripping apart at the roots.

Suddenly, a sonic boom sounded to their left, followed by a blur of red shooting across the bridge.

The servants huddled around Swift and gazed out at the weird sight. Streams of light sputtered across the globe as it spun and spun wildly, shooting off cracks of lightning. Strange echoes pealed across the sea. Like sheets of ice tearing apart. Like streams of energy cracking like whips.

“Is it meant to do that, Liason?” one servant asked.

“Liason, are we safe here?” piped another.

“What are we to do?” said another.

Swift looked out to the sea where the Bifrost gathered velocity and looked to be malfunctioning. A fiery white phantasm burned at the mouth of its entrance, possibly ready to detonate and destroy them all.

Then Swift looked back up the slope that led to the high ground where Frost Giants may still be roaming.

Then he looked at all their faces, eagerly demanding of him an answer that he did not know.

He took the spectacles from his face and sighed deeply.

“To Hel with this. I quit.” Swift said. “Everyone. Go where you damn well like. Do what you damn well want to. I’m no longer your Liason. I acquit myself.”

This was met with an eruption of exasperated groans and some angry outbursts.

Sara stepped back from the water. The waves began to act strangely – sucking backward from the shore and reversing their direction. Rather than breaking toward her feet, they now broke toward the horizon – and swiftly, and in armies.

A necklace flew across her face.

Followed by a metal helmet.

Then Swift’s spectacles.

Confused, Sara flipped around and watched as all their metal adornments – brass belts, silver necklaces, gold armbands – hovered up into the air as though lifted by invisible fingers and then, with one swift and mighty tug, tore away from all their limbs and shot out across the sea, barreling toward the Bifrost.

Struggling up the rocks, the boat-man hugged tight to his brass barrel of fish, refusing to let it go as the magnetic force dragged him backward. Cursing, he tumbled down the slope, feet over head, before the barrel finally sucked away from his grasp and somersaulted through the air, scattering fish across the rocks.

“Gods!” he yelled.

Bits of metal tore from the pylons along the bridge, from the gold sidings of guard posts that stood upon the coasts – all shooting toward the Bifrost.

In awe, Sara looked down at her ankle brace, forged by Krocus. Though it was gold, it stayed solid upon her ankle and did not fly off. He did not lie – it withstood all elements.

Swift did not seem the least bothered as the lot of servants, without waiting for his word, dashed to the caves to grab their belongings and their children, and broke around him as they rushed up the slope.

Swift sat upon the boulder and watched them go.

The tavern servant, still holding his barrel of mead, glowered at Swift as he passed by.

Lazily, Swift followed the lot up the slope and barked no more orders.

Then Sara followed, helping the orphan twins – both no taller than her waist, and both with hair dark as ravens. She guided them up the slippery rocks.

They were halfway up the slope when two explosions cracked in the distance. A few of the servants whipped around to look – as did Sara. She shot up at the sound and for a split second her world went still as she saw two fireballs shoot into the air.

Terrified one of them was Loki, she startled when she felt a gentle touch on her elbow.

The little girl had gripped onto her. Sara fought her eyes away from the Bifrost and helped the child get her footing.

They were more than halfway up the embankment, when a blast of lightning shot straight up from the bridge into the sky.

Moments later, the earth thudded underneath her feet.

Sara paused. The thud was like the steps of the Destroyer, but far more tremendous. And rooted far deep into the earth. She looked up the slope, expecting to see a silver giant stomping across the edge of the cliff.

All of the servants paused and looked at the ground.

Then a second thud came right on the heels of the next.

Then, a third.

Standing amid the boulders, they all looked to each other, puzzled.

Around them, the rocks shook as the earth rattled them loose.

“Run!” Swift yelled. “To high ground! Now!”

They broke into a panicked scramble up the slope. Giant rocks – ancient and still since creation – tumbled free from their haunches and fell from the cliff side, crashing around them.

Liason Swift reached the top of the path and called down to Sara.

“M’lady! Run!”

A stone somersaulted from the cliff, crashed off on another boulder, split in two and then barreled down the slope, knocking the little girl from her hands.

Sara stopped and looked up at Swift as he yelled for her to “Run!”

Without thinking, Sara scrambled wildly down through the boulders.

The little girl lay dazed but she was not crying.

In that instant, Sara noticed her eyes shone clear and calm as she looked up at her – the expression of one who had seen worse, who was bid to do and not complain.

“Hold onto me, child.” Sara whispered as she scooped the little girl into her arms.

She was light but Sara struggled to balance with one arm as she dodged out the way as one jagged stone tumbled in their path, then another. The pounding of the earth quickened, as though an army of giants were trying to beat their way up through the surface.

As she neared the top, the dark-haired boy raced back for his sister – his eyes fearful. At the sight of her, a million years fell from his face and he was a child once again. He grabbed hold of the little girl’s hand and they both glanced back at Sara as they raced away together.

Sara watched them tear off in their own direction, away from the rest – a tiny boy and a tinier girl, hand in hand, fleeing up the shadowed hillside to their own world far away from this one.

In that moment, a thunderous crack ripped through the air followed by a rain of sound that pounded around them like hail.

A blast knocked her to the ground, hitting across her back with the force of a giant trunk swinging from the heavens.

Mud and grass filled her mouth. A high-pitched hissing filled her head, muffling all the sounds about her as she, and the rest of the servants, scrambled back to their feet.

Though reality was quick, Sara felt it slow down around her – like a clock tick in water. Her ears ringing, she saw Swift yelling at her. But she could not hear him.

She just got to her feet when a wall of water, a half-mile high slammed into the mighty boulders of the cliffs with such ferocity that the waves exploded toward the heavens and crashed over all of them like sheets of rain twisted from stormy skies.

Sara clawed against the boulder and through the veil of water she saw the rainbow bridge in a cataclysm. Curtains of flame and giant shards of ice sailing into the air, like a small planet exploding.

Coughing up water, she blinked – the chaos of the explosion swallowed the edge of the bridge, concealing it from sight.

“Where is he?” Sara said in a panic, to no one in particular.

Her ears ringing, she could feel the trembling bass of the earth under her feet and hear the loud, low groan of the Bifrost as it heaved, sputtered and tore away from the hold of the bridge.

Hands seized her shoulders and pulled her off the rock.

“Come away!” Swift’s voice was nearby but it sounded far through the hissing of her ears.

“Where is he?” she repeated as she was dragged away. “I cannot see him.”

From the high, grassy path overlooking the sea – some of the servants stopped to look back at the spectacle. Their hands shot to their hearts, some to their mouths, as in horrified silence they watched the Bifrost, in all its majesty, tumble over the edge of the world – ripping from the bridge and leaving it jagged as a ravaged bone.

Sara watched, along with the others, as the tumult descended into a solemn silence. They grasped with their vision something impossible to imagine – the mighty Bifrost gone, the bridge destroyed.

Then across the sea came a cry so loud that it carried on the winds. It was more of a roar, no less thunderous than a mighty wave, but it broke around all of them with the unmistakable toll of a human voice.

Behind her, Loki spoke into her ear.

" _Sara_."

She whipped around but there was no one behind her.

There was nothing – just the wind blowing through the tall, high grass.

**

Most of the servants who’d fled to Heavendoor now returned to the towers. Like ants scrambling back to order, they rushed in their duties to make up for lost time. But they did so in silence.

Others, who’d seen the whole spectacle from the coast, rushed back to the inns and taverns – to be the first to regale those who did not witness it.

While yet others returned to their chambers for a good night’s sleep, mumbling to their spouses that they’d seen worse.

The rest of them, with the excitement that comes from the extraordinary happening, hurried back toward the citadel and took their places along the bridge where it cut through the city. They hoped to catch either a glimpse of the royals or at least be the first to hear a fresh bit of news on the attack of Jotuns or anything.

Thor and Odin walked the whole length of the bridge back to the mainland.

A long walk.

They did not ride on Sleipner, Odin’s horse, who instead trotted majestically but with a solemn gait behind the two of them.

The gatehouse doors opened toward the city and they emerged to an eruption of cheers.

Everyone had rushed to their balconies, or to the public collonades that ran along the bridge, or upon the docks that poked along the edges of river, or to the gilded windows of their chambers – to catch a glimpse of the newly-awakened Odin and the golden prince. Some tore roses from their own gardens and in a shower of red and white, the petals rained down on the royal pair of shadows that moved slowly across the glittering bridge.

Thor did not cheer back.

And Odin, who always raised his head at the sound of his people, paid no heed to them but rather clutched against his son.

Thor was not in glorious splendor. No smile blazed across his face. His golden head was hung low, his shoulders hunched under his cape as though he’d been deflated of all life.

Recognition of this landed on a few of the citizens who were close enough to the bridge to see. Once they did, they looked to one another, uncomfortably and ceased their cheering, though fanfare still erupted from the balconies overhead.

High above, the people could not see that something had gone horribly wrong; that there was no triumph in the walk of the Odinson and the Allfather.

Odin’s arm rested behind Thor’s neck and it was not clear to the onlookers if it was Thor holding up Odin, or Odin holding up Thor as they passed.

“Praise your majesty!” the voices called out from around them, but Odin’s head did not rise. Nor did Thor’s.

Sara was not with the populace. She didn’t see the return, though she heard the fanfare in the distance as she bolted toward the Great Hall in the citadel where she expected Loki and Thor to return.

Under the high domes, the court echoed with whispers that tore across the gallery. People stood in clusters speaking hurriedly and under their breath, anxious to get news or share the news. Most of all, they were eager to see Thor, while others hoped to see Odin, and yet others came to confirm all this nonsense of Frost Giants in the halls.

Sara caught whispers of their stories as she quietly, but determinedly, pushed her way through the crowd: Thor had fought a team of Frost Giants on the palace steps and, by Odin, they’d never seen such a fight; or Loki had fought a whole army of them using dirty sorcery; or Queen Frigga had killed the King of Jotunheim with her bare hands.

A few double-glanced at her wild appearance. Her emerald gown was soaked to black with water, her hair wild and down around her shoulders. She did not see their looks for her thoughts burned in hope: in all the whispers she caught, none of them mentioned Loki was dead.

Someone asked her if she had come from the sea, if she had seen anything, but Sara did not respond. She could barely hear them for she trained all her focus on the vaulted entrance, burning in hope that Thor and Loki would ascend the stairs.

At the top of the hall, Queen Frigga appeared. Two flights of stairs met on a landing before one regal flight of steps that glimmered dully in the light of the night torches.

Frigga quickly filed down the stairs, her lady’s maids trailing behind her. Her lovely face wracked with worry, she did not seem to even notice the crowd as they parted for her. In an expulsion of relief, she cried out “My son!”

With heaving limbs, Thor trudged up the stairs toward her. As he went to embrace her, Odin nearly collapsed and Frigga caught him in her arm, as well.

Though no words passed between the three of them – none that the crowd could hear, anyway – a devastated pallor filled the Queen’s eyes as she steadied the both of them and struggled to keep her expression firm as they split through the silence of the court and, with slow steps, ascended the stairs.

A discomfort settled across the citizens as they realized they were not watching a triumphant reunion but rather a private moment between a family in the grip of some tragedy.

For it was clear to all of them that Queen Frigga’s eyes would not fill with sadness over the destruction of the Bifrost the way they did now. Odin would not lift his foot so slow upon the step, as though it pained him, because the Bifrost was destroyed. And Thor…who never once turned his face way from the people, could look at nothing but the ground.

It was something far worse. The crowd went silent as the royal family moved slowly up the grand stairway to their private hall.

As the court watched the three of them ascend the stairs, Sara’s head was turned the other way, watching the entrance – waiting for Loki’s dark head to appear.

She did not see Frigga briefly glance down at her.

She did not see the others around her as they fell away.

She did not see the servants as they shuffled into the empty gallery to re-light the torches.

Tears burned in her eyes as she stared hard at the archway looking at the empty stairs where Loki did not come.

***

Her legs dead, she walked from the Great Hall to his towers. There was no need to run anymore.

A silence seemed to settle across the entire kingdom – rich, heavy and punctured only by the occasional whinny of a horse or the clanging of metal as the armory closed up for the night, or the whistle of winds as they swirled through the abandoned worship squares, the ivy-covered archways, the un-swept stoops of the markets, or the long colonnades of crimson floors and golden pillars that seemed to glow more solid and brilliant in the life of wakened Odin.

A few windows glowed in the servant quarters, still awake.

At the entrance of his towers, there was not a guard to be seen. The change of power in Asgard was swift.

She stood before Loki’s chamber doors. Many times she’d been in his towers and the air was filled with energy – the flames vivid, the air quicksilver on her skin.

She opened his doors and found the air inside felt plain, like anywhere else. The torches merely danced in their sconces but they did not blaze. The flames had gone out of his hearth – it was just a black mouth in the wall, though the scent of smoldered wood curled from it.

Numbly, Sara walked deeper into his chamber. It was cold as a tomb. Behind her, the doors stayed open. There were no guards to close them. She didn’t care if she was caught. In the commotion no one thought to secure his towers. It had happened so fast.

His bed was untouched – though the spreads were lightly tussled still.

Crumpled on the ground lay one of the gowns Loki gave her to wear. It lay in the very spot she left it last, though now it was just a heap of dark silks, one of many shadows. Her own hairs were on the pillows still. But the pillows were cold to the touch.

Her gaze fell along the walls. Streaks of black scarred across the surface; in some places smudges of blood bursted from fist-sized indentures. She ran her fingers along them, confused. She turned and noticed his pile of books had been torn apart, strewn across the floor. The pages flapped in the winds, for one of his high windows had been busted open – leaving one jagged tooth of glass at the top and the winds howled across it. The tables had been flung across the room and lay upturned. Cracks of stone where the brackets of torches had been ripped from the walls. His chair by the fire was missing.

Sadly, she wondered at the vandals. Why they would ransack his chambers so quickly. It had been but hours since Thor returned. Defeated, she closed her eyes.

“He left it in this state, m’lady.” A woman’s voice pierced the silence. Turin looked at her from the dark mouth of the doorway. She was white-haired but sturdy from years of labor. She had taken Sara’s place as Loki’s tower maid and she’d seen her on the grounds. She noticed that Frigga had taken care to appoint a maid who was older. And wiser. Who could neither lure or be lured, or be foolish.

Her fingers still upon his blood, Sara could not understand. Why would Loki tear apart his chamber?

“When?” She asked. She’d just been here but a day ago, napping on the floor. It was in no state like this.

Turin’s hard eyes scanned the wreckage. “Just last night, in the dead of dawn. I was asleep in my cot and saw him – calm as a sea – enter here. Then once the doors were closed, he raised such a fury inside, I thought he’d wake the dead.” Reading Sara’s stunned look for disbelief, Turin pointed to the foyer. “By Odin, I heard it with my own ears. Stood right there and listened. I thought for sure that the All-father had died the way he railed and raged so.”

Why? Sara wondered. She noticed the windows had no curtains. He’d torn them from the riggings, along with everything, save the bed and her gowns. Loki left those undisturbed.

Sara realized Loki must’ve come here right after he left the healing chambers, where – according to Gedr – he had silently watched over Sara throughout the night.

Numbly she approached the fireplace. Half the curtains had been eaten up by flames, the other half intact and sprawled across the floor. When she picked them up, they crumbled into black ashes and she was left holding the part that was unburnt. She ran it underneath her fingers – they still glittered in particles of stardust.

Neatly, Sara folded it and placed it on the ground.

The wind whistled through his shattered window as Sara looked out of it. His long chair lay leagues below, perched on the edge of a bridge.

She ran her finger along an edge of glass. It was freezing to the touch. A bead of blood oozed on her finger. She’d been cut, but she felt nothing. Turin lowered her head and left her alone.

She could not let herself cry – for it would be acceptance.

She then picked up her skirts and tore out of his chamber.

She never returned to it.

Deep in the hearth, a tiny ember glowed still.

Gedr’s windows grew light and dark as the days passed. The minutes sloughed through the hours and then yawned themselves across the days. She was not ready to face them.

Soup met her lips, occasionally bread, and sometimes Gedr came and sat by her bed – her eyes sad, wise and patient.

Though she was homeless – with no occupation – she would never allow herself to sleep in her old cot. She had slept in that bed, many nights and early dawns, with the scent of her master clinging to her skin, with his hands upon her body, all her thoughts awash with him.

No, she could not bring herself to sleep there.

And she could no more rest in Loki’s bed than she could even bring herself to look in the direction of his towers. From what she heard, no more servants entered his hall. No one lit his torches. His towers remained uninhabited though the Queen ordered them to stay untouched. In moratorium, they were left dark for the young prince who fell from the edge of the world and would never return.

Black blood dripped from her hands and Loki collapsed into her arms, his face betrayed. Sara woke from those nightmares. In a mad fever, she’d shoot up in bed and confess to Gedr that she killed Loki; that she drove the blade of obsidian into his back and that was why he was gone. And each night, Gedr just placed a hand to her forehead and soothed her back to rest. She seemed entirely unmoved that Sara attempted regicide.

“You did not kill the would-be king,” Gedr soothed. “But that wound will never heal, I assure you.” She lit a candle. “He must’ve used the darkest sorcery to combat a power like that, but it will never heal. If you meant to kill, you should’ve aimed for his heart – not his back. The poison will linger him, m’lady and it will never go away. You did well, child. Get some rest.”

But Sara did not need re-assurances that Loki would not return; that her attack on him was a success. His eyes were seared in her memory and she wanted to smother them from her mind.

But sleep haunted her. It brought only nightmares. A wretched beast, chained in a corner – rabid and broken. It snarled at her and snapped when she went to soothe it. Then, when Sara awoke, the daylight haunted her – for each day she opened her eyes and Loki was gone felt like it’s own class of nightmare.

There’d been many versions of Loki’s death. Gedr had been kind to shield Sara from most but when Sara ventured out with Gedr to bathe in the ladies chambers, she’d caught glimpses here and there.

Thor had killed Loki and chucked him off the bridge; Loki was killed by Frost Giants in Odin’s Chamber. The official story – sanctioned throughout the palace was that Loki was inside the Bifrost as it fell off the edge of the world.

Sara had seen that much.

There was no funeral, no rites for the fallen prince. Instead, the palace wore black and all the servants took caution around Thor. He’d ordered no more feasts and spent his days alone in his chambers. When he was not there, he was at the edge of the bridge, mourning the loss of his brother. Hekr had told them that some of his tower maids worried he spent so much time by Heimdall’s side that the Gatekeeper himself would have to bring him his meals.

For the days that followed it’s destruction, the Bifrost seemed to have taken the vitality of the kingdom down with it. Though the eternal realm had no equal, it now sat stranded in the stars. Those who never dreamed of leaving the kingdom now felt the absence of the possibility to do so.

And they coped with it the only way they knew how – through feast and song. Every night, the halls were filled with it.

This evening, Sara ventured out beyond Gedr’s chamber and looked out from the balustrade of the Ladies Hall. Columns glowed in the moonlight and the lake was calm.

Below her, a revel was underway.

In a high-arched hall, merry sounds trickled out. It’s massive gold doors and gilded walls glowed from the firelight inside.

Sara leaned against a pillar – feeling the moonlight on her skin. The world felt safe enough to come out and not be reminded of all she wished to forget.

Then, she spotted Lord Thor.

The songs and laughter of the hall swelled as he opened the door and died as he let it slam shut. Slowly, he walked out to the edge of the balcony and stood, alone, watching the stars.

His golden head was bright in the moonlight.

She studied him, amazed that the boisterous god was not part of the ruckus inside. Rather, he was still and quiet, like a statue; his reverie so deep and peaceful as he looked up at the sky, she wondered if it was even Lord Thor she was watching – for how could such a figure at peace ever been the same as the one who courted war? But his crimson cape burned in the nighttime. It was none other than him, she was sure of it.

An eruption of yells poured from the hall as a fight broke. Thor looked back over his shoulder and in the light of the moon, Sara saw a faint smile but it did not reach his eyes.

Then he looked back out at the stars.

**

One morning, Hekr had tore into Gedr’s chambers and told her that the Queen requested her presence.

Sara smoothed the front of her gown and swallowed hard. She felt she was in no state to be seen by the Queen of Asgard but Gedr had taken care to brush her hair and bathe her.

When she was led into the Queen’s hall, Sara kept her eyes fixed to the ground – out of habit and respect – but she could see the grand sweep of the place from the sides of her vision. Flowers wrapped themselves up columns and a foyer full of gilded doors stretched on one side. Fountains trickled in the distance.

Two guards opened a pair of doors before her and she found herself in one of the Queen’s chambers.

Bedecked in a regal gown of blue, crossed in gold, Frigga leaned against a column in the grand room that overlooked the lakes. They shined blue behind her as Frigga stood on the terrace. To Sara, Frigga looked every inch a god – even more so than Loki – but as she drew closer she saw the Queen’s features were soft and nearly human. There was nothing fierce or otherworldly in her face.

Sara approached and knelt low before her.

“Your majesty.” Sara said.

She felt Frigga’s eyes follow her down as she curtseyed.

When Sara rose, Frigga regarded her in silence. Sara fought to look away from her gaze – it was lovely but intense, it penetrated into her just like Loki’s.

And, like Loki, Frigga’s stone beauty broke into a sudden smile.

Her eyes were stunning but there was a fire of heartbreak behind them – a sadness that even her smile could not quite hide. Frigga rested her elbow on her crossed arm and studied the horizon. She said nothing for so long that Sara began to wonder if it was a mistake she’d been beckoned or if perhaps she should speak.

Finally, Frigga’s voice cut through the silence like birdsong.

“Sara.” She said. “That is a very beautiful name. It is unknown here. Is it truly yours?”

“Yes, your majesty.” She replied, hoping that was the correct answer.

Frigga then breezed across the chamber and stood before a small chest on an iron table. With a flick of her hand, it opened by magic. She took out something that Sara couldn’t see.

Frigga then turned to Sara and glided toward her.

“My son entrusted this to me.” She said

The mention of her son sent Sara’s eyes back to the floor again. Once she could catch her breath and steady herself, she lifted her eyes to the Queen. Frigga ran a finger along the lid and there was a hint of playfulness in her eyes.

“I cannot open it.” She said “But if I could, I would not. It belongs to you.”

Frigga held out the music box.

It looked plain and crude in Frigga’s fair hands – just a wooden box, inlaid with blue stones but it felt like all she had left in the world.

Uncertainly, Sara looked to the Queen.

Frigga made a goading gesture with her head as if to say “Go on, take it.”

Slowly and in silence, Sara took it from her, smiled and knelt in deep curtsey.

“I thank you, your majesty. This is very dear to me.”

Frigga laughed. “I would imagine so.” Then she widened her eyes, in dazzling mischief. “It nearly cost you your life.”

Sara looked up at her. Frigga’s smile was a knowing one – she’d seen it many times before on Loki. She sensed that Frigga knew more of the events behind the box, and where it took her, than she dared to let on.

“Take care with it.” Frigga said. “It is more than what it seems.”

She winked at her.

Sara bowed her head low. “I will, your Grace. Thank you.”

Frigga rose her chin, her loveliness turned stern as she stared out toward the sea.

“You were a great comfort to my son.” She stated. Though Frigga blinked soft, she had a warrior’s steel in her eyes. “For that, you are always welcome at my table.” With another knowing smile, she glanced back at Sara. “Whichever realm you come from, it does not matter. My doors will always open for you.”

Sara bowed her head deeply and the very words of Frigga rushed through her – moving her. She’d not been a mother – she could not imagine the loss of a child.

Having spent so much time reading the moods of others, she knew it was no time to deliver condolence, reminding the Queen of what she herself could not forget and what was clear and solid between them, that did not need to be said.

“It would be my honor, your Grace.” Sara said, cloaking her condolence. “I thank you, deeply.”

Her eyes shining in water, Frigga smiled.

She flicked her hand and two maids hurried up to escort Sara away quickly.

Clutching the music box, Sara left the palace of the Queen.

Spiders spun busily in their webs, the sunlight glowing on their shrouded homes within the bushes. The trees were full of fruit and birds were singing. She looked down at the box, ready to open it when she noticed a tiny scroll, wrapped in twine, fastened along the wind-up key. She was certain it was not there before. Though her fingers trembled, she un-tied it from the key. It had been fastened to it with some care. She unknotted the bow, expecting it to be perhaps some scroll of record for the Vault inventories or an account of its properties.

She cursed herself she could not read.

In an even hand, black writing etched straight across the little parchment: full of dots and slanted lines. It looked official, likely a document of the Head Counsellor. The marks were just marks. She rolled it back up and felt a burn to know its contents.

**

She did not know how long it’d been since she’d seen him last, but when she entered his quarters – she realized it had been three fortnights, for Swift angrily told her as much when he opened the door to her.

“It’d do you well, m’lady to return courtesies. I called on you three times.”

“I am sorry, my lord.” Sara said, looking around his quarters – they were plain but tidy. There was not a speck of dust and his chairs and tables were positioned in perfect right angles to each other. “It was kind of you to inquire after me.”

“Well – ” Swift looked around and beckoned her to take a seat, but the motion was forced. She got the feeling that he did not have friends and or anyone into his chambers. She promised she would not stay long and discomfit him further.

“I see you are well.” He sniffed.

“Indeed.” Sara said, though it was only a half-truth. “And you?”

“At the peak of health.” He said, blankly and then he looked around his chambers as

though all the objects in the room were suddenly more fascinating now. It became painfully clear to her that, without Loki, they had very little to say to each other.

“You’ve found a new rank, I hear.” Sara said.

“Yes, yes.” He said. “Word got out of my…” he cleared his throat “less than graceful behavior…that night…”

Sara lowered her head.

“You were much overwhelmed.” She said. “You did the best you could.”

“In the halls, they say I am unfit for leadership.” Swift shrugged but as he stared at her, she detected that the label stung him.

“But you are scribe now.” Sara encouraged. “Odin would not appoint you if he found you unfit.”

“Yes.” Swift nodded. “I am much better suited for my current labor.”

Sara showed Swift the tiny scroll. It was no bigger than the palm of her hand. He looked at it, then to her.

“You come for assistance.” He said, lightening.

“Yes.” Sara said. “I cannot read.” For a moment, she saw a glimmer of pride in Swift’s eyes. Three fortnights of being nearly equal with servants were three fortnights too long. He had a chance to feel regal once again, as one who ranked just above their kindthough, in his estimation, not far enough.

His haughtiness was ill-placed but it was harmless. She fought back a smile as she saw Swift fighting to hide his pride as he took the scroll from her and said coolly “Of course you can’t.” He sniffed. “That is an Asgardian hand – written in high speech.”

“Can you read it for me?” Sara said.

He unrolled it and scanned the contents. Sara never hung on someone’s words the way she did now, for when Swift first spoke the words:

_My dear creature –_

The room she sat in felt weightless, as though the shafts of dusty sunlight through Swift’s roof had swept the air of all its murkiness and she was alone.

You cannot read this but if you are, you have either taught yourself to read High Asgardian and have been fooling me – which I will delight in punishing you or I’ve returned and taught you to read, as I plan to, and you have snuck this box from my possession. In which case, you will place this note aside and come to my chambers now. I will show you what these words feel like – if you use them wisely.

At this Swift cleared his throat and a hint of red crossed his cheeks. He carried on.

_Or, if my words are being read to you, it will be by some meager scribe you fetched from the palace who has nothing nobler to do than transcribe my words and make a mess of them in translation –_

On those last words, Swift trailed off and frowned. 

_Either way, if you are reading this, I did not return from Jotunheim. I was either killed on sight or have managed to do the impossible – which is die and not return to you._

Sara raised her hand for Swift to stop.

“No more.” She said and stood up, collecting herself.

She tried to steady her breath so that the next exhalation did not bring tears. Especially infront of Swift. Her fingers trembled.

“M’lady I am sorry…” Swift said. He stood up and approached her. Stiffly, he went to put a hand on her shoulder, though he did not look like he wanted to land it.

“No…I am sorry. I should not have you read this. I –”

“No, m’lady – I am sorry but I cannot read further. The rest of it is enchanted.” He twisted open his hand and gave her back the scroll. “See the rest of the letters here. They shift and scramble – they are not meant for anyone’s eyes but yours.”

Gently, Sara took the scroll and held it in her palm – it felt alive like a tiny bird.

**

Asgard stretched in full splendor. The sun was high above the mountains, a herald to the kingdom. Noiselessly, Sara walked up the footpath that led to the open face of the high hill. Here, she’d rested once in Loki’s arms as they stared up at the night sky. She’d seen the lights of Ydarissil as they burned across the heavens. Here she’d once felt his embrace around her body.

Now the sky was bright – the clouds high and pink. And it was not him, but his letter that she held in close. A few seagulls cawed in the distance, circling the cliffs to the South over the sea. It was a calm sea. And the waves still roared to the edge of the world. The absence of the Bifrost emptied the horizon, making the world seem thrice as wide. The rainbow bridge ended in a jagged edge and upon it stood Heimdall – his gold helmet gleaming in the daylight so that, even at that distance, it shone bright like a tiny sun.

And to the east, the rivers of Asgard glittered like bright stars in the sunshine.

Sara took of her slippers and felt the wet grass under her toes.

Gently, she opened the scroll. It’d taken her a whole walk to stir up the courage to listen to her master’s words.

She scanned the symbols further down the page. Unlike the ones at the top, where Swift had read, these markings – black and wobbly at first – snapped into sharp focus as her eyes drew across them.

She gasped when her mind quickly could make sense of the markings. They joined together, link by link, and connected into words that sounded out in her mind just as easily as she could speak and hear them. One after another, they made sense and formed ideas – she felt like she’d opened a portal of magic. For the first time, she smiled. It had been so long since she felt delight.

_You should now be much alone. No palace scribe can decipher the spell on these words._

Sara smiled into her hand. Only Loki could calculate every possible outcome of the future. She chuckled a bit and the sound of her own laugh startled her. Though his absence was a pain in her heart, it was not the sea-breezes across her face that gave it reprieve. But his words that followed.

_This meager trinket in your hands is not a harmless gift, as you call it._

My creature, there are no harmless gifts.

_What you hold is a portculaie – a portal between the realms. They once belonged to the sorcerers of ancient Midgard and how your mother came upon it is a mystery, and a shame, for no one of your race should give them freely. Or possess them at all. Only a being from its realm can wield it, though its spell is lost to time. Which is fortunate because it is very dangerous. I have looked for it and have yet to find it._

_Once I return, I plan to take you to Midgard. If you are reading this, that is no longer possible. If you wish to see your realm, you must go to the Queen and she’ll permit you to take the Bifrost and see Midgard for yourself. This is a pity, for I planned to show it to you, to have you watch its miseries and splendors from my side and not alone._

She’d been crying but she did not know when the tears started, and it did not matter. She kept reading.

_It may surprise you to learn you are Midgardian. My creature, do not fret. You are mine – and my realm is yours._

_I have not returned. Do not be foolish and come look for me. You could not breach Hel the way I have – even if you spent your whole life in sorcery._

_You are mortal, Sara and for you, time is perilous – do not waste it looking for me. Do not waste it at all._

_I cannot linger long – you are to meet me in the glade of Bor and I plan to have my fill of you before sunrise. If Laufey strikes me down, it will be a good death. With your scent in my mouth, it will be a fine death. I do not fear it._

_Farewell, my creature._

The sky was darkening to dusk when Sara finally rolled up the scroll and stood. She’d sat on the hill all afternoon, holding Loki’s letter and grazing her eyes over his words – again and again till she could, through the sorcery of reading, generate a sense of him being beside her once again. It was the Loki she knew, and remembered, and loved, that poured from the page into her mind.

Sara looked out at the stars, now popping over the horizon of the sea, where he disappeared.

Sara smiled to herself, though her heart lost only a bit of its heaviness. This letter was the last of him – for after he returned from Jotunheim and Midgard, he was not quite the same. She wondered what had changed him, but he was gone now.

Deep in thought, Sara made her way down the hill. She’d already memorized his words by heart and she grew light with the feeling that the wild rage that terrorized her on the throne was now, somewhere, at peace.

And in her hand, she held a token – forever, she’d hold it – of the lord who galvanized her silent, sleeping soul to life.


End file.
